Jack opened the bathroom door. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t try anything.” He stepped into the master bedroom.
Throwing herself forward, Vicki scurried on hands and knees toward the door. She was almost there when Jack spun around. He lunged for the door. She smashed it shut with a swing of her fist. The door slammed. She rose on her knees. Reached for the knob. For the lock button.
The door flew at her, knocked her hand aside, crashed into her forehead.
She came awake in darkness, her head throbbing and spinning. She didn’t know where she was, but her wet hair forced the memory of looking up at Jack through the bathtub water. She remembered what he’d done before throwing her into the tub. She tried to think forward, to getting out of the tub, but the memories stopped with her still under water and thinking she would drown.
She knew she was no longer in the tub. She was on a cushion. She was wearing something dry and warm on top, sodden and chilly lower where it clung to her rump and legs. Jack’s robe? She remembered him wearing it when he squatted in the tub and grabbed her ankles.
Was she on the bed in Jack’s master bedroom?
She tried to push herself up. The dizziness flipped her stomach. She grabbed the edge of the cushion and dragged herself sideways and vomited onto the floor.
When she finished, she rolled away from the edge. Lying curled on her side, she saw a seatback in front of her. There was dim light above it. And a head. A head that turned. A face that was a pale oval, dark smudges for its eyes and mouth. Jack.
The face turned away, and Jack kept on driving.
She knew where he was taking her.
To Melvin.
She tried to make herself as small as she felt, snuggling her back against the rise of the seat cushion, drawing up her knees, hugging her breasts through the heavy softness of the terri cloth robe.
Taking me to Melvin, she thought.
Following orders.
“Jack?” Her voice sounded small and far away. “What did he do to you, Jack?”
“Remember what I said about telling,” he warned.
“I remember. I won’t say anything. What did he do to you? How did he make you…we loved each other.”
“That so?”
“Oh, God,” she moaned.
“You’re Melvin’s,” he said. “That’s all I know. I wasn’t supposed to touch you, just pretend I was your boyfriend and bring you back to him. That’s all. But you had to flaunt yourself and tempt me, you damn whore, and I lost my cool.”
“It’s that…thing…on your stomach. That face or whatever it is.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Vicki.”
Her heart seemed to jump, pumping blood into her head, making it throb. Squinting against the pain, she sat up. She scooted across the seat, away from the vomit, and swung her feet to the floor.
Jack twisted the rearview mirror so he could keep an eye on her. “Don’t even think about trying something. Last time, I almost broke your head open.”
She settled down against the cushion and stared at the back of his head. “What’s my last name?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“He drove me to the house and told me to wait for Vicki and take her to him. And not to mess with her. Remember that.”
“Jack. You didn’t. You didn’t mess with her. I’m not Vicki.”
“Bullshit.” He turned the car onto Elm Street. With a glance out of the window, she saw that they were only a block from Melvin’s house.
“You’ll find out when we get there,” she said. “Melvin’s really going to be mad.”
She felt the car slow.
“I know Vicki,” she said. “She was supposed to show up at your house? Why? I don’t get it.”
“Melvin knew you’d come back.”
“Not me. Vicki. Was she there tonight? After I left? I don’t…Has she been…has she been going with you? Behind my back?”
Jack stopped the car. He twisted around and stared at her. “What’re you trying to pull?”
“That rotten bitch! Melvin wants her? He can have her! I’ll take you to her. I know right where she is. Turn the car around.”
Jack shook his head. “He said the gal who comes to the house would be Vicki. You’re the one who came to the house.”
“But I’m not Vicki. I’m Jennifer Morley.”
“Wait. No. That’s crazy.”
“I can prove it. My purse.” She paused. Her head felt as if it were splitting down the middle. “You can see my ID. Where’s my purse?”
“Back at the house.”
“Well, didn’t you look in it? Why didn’t you make sure before you…God, you’re stupid. Melvin’s gonna cream you when you walk in there with me. Jesus!”
“You’re Vicki.” He didn’t sound sure. “You’re just trying to trick me.”
“That note I left on the banister. If you’d read it, you’d know who I am. I signed it. I signed, ‘Love, Jennifer.’ Take me back to the house and I’ll prove it. You’ve got the wrong person!”
“Melvin’ll know.” He faced forward. The car began to move.
“I can be yours,” Vicki blurted. “If you take me to Melvin, I’ll be his. He didn’t send you out to get me. He sent you for Vicki. So you won’t be disobeying if you keep me for yourself. I can be yours, and I’ll help you get Vicki. You can take her to Melvin, and keep me. I love you, Jack. I want to be with you, not with Melvin. Please.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
“Jack. You want me, don’t you?” Leaning forward, she reached over the seatback and placed her hands gently on Jack’s shoulders. They hunched for a moment as if he expected an attack. She caressed him through his knit shirt.
He stopped the car. In front of Melvin’s house.
“Keep going,” Vicki whispered, brushing her lips against his ear.
“No,” he said. “You’re going in.”
Her hands tightened on his shoulders. She saw herself grabbing his face, going for his eyes, gouging into them with her fingernails. The pain should incapacitate him, giving her a chance to flee. Blinded, he wouldn’t have a chance of overtaking her. She’d get away.
But this was Jack, her Jack. As brutal as he’d been to her, it wasn’t his fault. Melvin had him controlled. Somehow. And maybe it wasn’t permanent. But if she blinded him…
As he pulled the key from the ignition, Vicki rammed him forward. He slammed against the steering wheel. The car horn blared.
She threw herself against the door, levered its handle and stumbled out. She had a stranger’s legs, weak and trembling. But she kept them under her, staggering toward the rear of the car, looking back when she heard the driver’s door squeak. Jack lurched into the street. She ran.
She sprinted, chin tucked down, arms pumping, legs flying out, bare feet pounding the blacktop. Though pain crashed through her head with every heartbeat, her legs began to feel right. Her own legs, her own body, running—just as she had run every morning, but this time with an urgency she’d never known before.
She heard Jack behind her. His slapping shoes. His huffing breath.
He’ll never catch me!
She dashed up the center of the road. She felt the breeze in her wet hair, on her face, on her chest and belly and legs. The robe, hanging loose, flapped behind her like a cape.
I can run like this all night, she thought. I can run right into the police station.
(Lot of good that would do.)
An intersection. Glaring brightness from the left.
She snapped her head that way.
A car rushed toward her, bore down roaring, then shrieking. Shrieking, though she thought she was safe from it, strides beyond its path.
She twisted around in time to see it hit Jack.
Even over the noise of the brakes, she heard the thuds of the impact. The bumper struck the side of his leg. It kic
ked both his legs high. His body shot over the hood. His head crashed through the windshield.
The car came to a stop just beyond the intersection.
The driver’s door swung open. As a man climbed out, Vicki pulled her robe shut and tightened its cloth belt.
She wondered whether to run or stay.
There’s no more reason to run, she realized. Melvin’s house, far back from the road and alone on the block, was more than a hundred yards from the intersection. She could keep an eye on it. She could get away in the man’s car at the first sign of Melvin’s approach.
And Jack was no longer a threat.
“He ran right in front of me!” the man called to her. He sounded scared. “You saw it, didn’t you? Was he chasing you or something? What’s going on?”
She walked toward him. “He was after me,” she said.
“Wow. Oh, wow.” He stood beside his car, turning, looking at Vicki, then at the body sprawled motionless across his hood, then at Vicki again.
In the glow of the streetlights, he looked vaguely familiar. A short man, black hair in a crew-cut, eyes small and too close to his broad nose. “Hey,” he said. “You’re someone. Vicki?”
She nodded.
“Wes,” he said. “Wes Wallace. You remember me?”
“Sure.” From school. He used to pal around with Manny Stubbins. “How’re you doing?”
“Jesus. Not bad till a minute ago. Jesus H. Christ on a rubber crutch.” He walked closer to the body. Vicki stayed beside him. “Who was it?”
“Jack Randolph,” she said, and felt a sudden aching tightness in her chest.
“You say this guy was chasing you?”
“He…he’d attacked me. I got away. He was trying to get me again.”
“Hey, so I’m some kind of hero, huh?” He leaned over the side of the car, and stared. “Sure busted my windshield. Maybe I better try ’n get him out, you know?” He clutched the back of Jack’s belt and pulled. The body didn’t move. “Shit. Hung up.” Reaching through the hole in the windshield, he grabbed Jack by the hair and lifted. Then, he dragged the body backward and let the head down on the hood. He gave it a close look, and groaned. “God, last time I saw something this bad was when Kraft and Darlene…” He turned away, holding his mouth and gagging.
Vicki saw Jack’s head. Its crown was caved in. One eye had popped out, and dangled by the optic nerve against the side of his nose.
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered. He was no longer a monster, he was Jack again, the man she had held in her arms only hours ago, who had been in her and part of her. Bending over, she lay her arms across his back, pressed her cheek against him.
And felt a slow rise and fall as he breathed.
Vicki whirled around. “Wes! He’s alive.”
Wes was hunched over, vomiting.
“Hurry! Come here and help.” Not waiting for him, Vicki turned again to Jack. She pulled his limp arms down against his sides and shoved his spraddled legs together. She clutched him by the shoulder and hip, pulled, tried to roll him over.
Then Wes was beside her. “Alive? Can’t be.”
“Help me turn him over.”
Together, they tumbled Jack onto his back.
“Oh, wow,” Wes muttered. “Look at that.”
Vicki looked.
A triangular shard of windshield glass was embedded in Jack’s throat. Its point had entered his esophagus, but the jugular and carotid hadn’t been severed. Wes peered at it, his face inches above the glass.
A hand grasped Vicki’s wrist.
She looked down.
Not Wes’s hand. Jack’s.
It seized her like a manacle. Gooseflesh like a swarm of spiders scurried up her back.
She looked at Jack. His one eye opened slightly, slid toward Wes.
“I’ll be damned,” Wes said. “I guess…”
“Look out!” Vicki cried when Jack’s other hand darted up. Wes started to rise away. Vicki flung herself against the side of the car and leaned and reached for Jack’s hand as it tugged the glass shard from his throat. But he was too quick. For either of them. Vicki reached and missed and Wes was unbending and Jack slashed.
Blood spouted from Wes’s neck. It splashed Jack’s face. Wes lurched upright, grabbed his throat and walked backward stiffly, blood shooting between his fingers.
“No!” Vicki shrieked. She twisted away from the car, trying to tug her wrist from Jack’s grip, and saw Wes fall. His legs just gave out and his rump hit the blacktop and he sat there, spraying the front of his jeans.
She threw herself sideways, all her weight against the hand squeezing her wrist. Her muscles strained. She felt as if her arm might pop from its socket. But Jack didn’t loose his grip. As he slid off the hood, she reached with her other hand and snatched his thumb. She struggled to pry it away from her wrist. Jack dropped to the street, landing on his knees, staggering to his feet. She stumbled away as he came at her.
With a gristly ripping sound and a pop, his thumb broke.
Vicki jerked her hand free.
Before she could spin away, his other hand grabbed a lapel of the robe. He yanked her up against him. She faced his wide frantic eye, his empty socket, his hanging, swaying eye.
The blow came fast. His knee? It blasted Vicki’s breath out and lifted her off her feet.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Patricia, bent over the body of Chief Raines, prodded the green ooze back inside the gash with the fingers of one hand while she stitched the wound with the other. She was tugging her needle gently, pulling the thread, when the doorbell rang. She flinched. The needle jerked. The stitch pulled out with a silent tearing of skin.
She looked at Melvin, her eyes wide.
“I’ll take care of it,” Melvin said.
“More cops?” Patricia asked.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Shouldn’t I go up just in case? I can do my thing again.
“Stay here and finish up with Raines.” Melvin backed away from the lab table. He crouched over the heap of clothing they’d removed from the cops. He had dropped the handguns on top of the pile. All four of them. Three were cop guns—.38 caliber Smith & Wessons, blue steel with four-inch barrels. One was his own Colt .44.
He’d emptied his .44 and Milbourne’s .38 into Raines and Woodman.
The doorbell rang again.
“Melvin!”
“I’ll take care of it.” He grabbed two .38s and charged up the stairs.
By the time he reached the top, he was laboring for breath.
These fucking better not be more cops, he thought.
As he hurried through the hallway, he pointed both guns at his eyes. The blunt tips of bullets showed in the cylinder holes of just one.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He dropped the empty revolver to the floor.
At the front door, he flicked on the porch light and squinted through the peephole.
Felt a tight squeeze of shock and joy.
He released the locks, swung the door open, and stepped backward as Jack entered the foyer.
He gaped at them.
At Vicki, at Jack.
Vicki hung limp in Jack’s arms, her arms and legs dangling, her head drooping, her eyes gazing into space. Her hair looked damp and stringy, but otherwise…ah, so beautiful. She wore a powder blue robe that had fallen open. Melvin stared at her pale breast, its dark nipple, the sleek curves of her ribcage and belly and hip, the smooth side of her buttock, her long tapering leg.
Her beauty seemed all the more perfect compared to the ruin that was Jack.
The top of Jack’s head was broken flat. His face was sheathed with dripping blood. And that eye. It dangled against his cheek like a bloody, peeled egg.
“What’d, you have some trouble?” Melvin asked.
Jack shrugged and grunted. Melvin saw the raw slot in his throat, and realized why he wasn’t talking.
“Anyone after you?”
Jack turned, swinging Vicki, and ro
cked her back and forth as if gesturing out the doorway with her knees.
Melvin stepped past him. From the stoop, he saw his car parked at the curb and another car far down at the end of the block standing crooked just the other side of the intersection. Its headlights were on.
He wanted to ask what it was doing there, but Jack was in no shape explain anything.
“Take her down to the basement,” he ordered. Then he shut the door and hurried toward the distant car. The grass in front of the house was wet and slick under his feet. Already, he could feel sweat making his silk robe cling to his back. He didn’t want to be all hot and sweaty for Vicki.
Pain in the ass, he thought. The last thing he needed was to go running around like this. Now, when he finally had Vicki, he had to go chasing off. He should be inside with her.
Always some kind of fuck-up.
He felt cheated. As if the party had started without him. He wanted to be there. Instead, he was missing out. And getting himself breathless and sweaty.
His frustration changed to worry when he realized he wouldn’t be there when Patricia saw Vicki.
Shouldn’t have told Jack to take her down.
Shit!
He’d planned to get rid of Patricia before Vicki came along.
Should’ve taken care of her soon as the cops was dead, he told himself.
But he hadn’t even thought of it. Too busy.
As soon as the cops were killed, he’d left Patricia alone and driven Jack home. When he returned, he found her trying to drag one of the bodies down the basement stairs. And still didn’t think of wiping her out, even though Jack was all set and waiting and might show up pretty soon with Vicki.
After helping to move the bodies into the basement, Melvin had allowed her to do most of the work involved in resurrecting them. And never gave it a thought that time was getting short.
Stupid!
Now, she was down there and so was Vicki.
Shit!
She better not try nothing!
Huffing, Melvin rushed past the rear of the car. And saw a body lying in the street.
What the hell happened here?
Jack must’ve run into trouble, all right. But it looked as if he’d taken care of it.
Good fella, Jack.