Coven (7 page)

“
This is absurd,” the
figure said. “I won’t stand for this.”

“
I’m surprised you can
stand at all, fat as you are.”

The ax raised. The figure, offended, took a
step—

—
and Mr. Sladder fired the
pistol.

Penelope flinched. It
wasn’t like TV—the tiny gun made a loud, irritating
pop!
Then came a
ping!
A bullet ricocheted
off the giant, flat ax blade. Mr. Sladder fired again. The figure
howled, fell down, and crawled out the exit.

“
He shot me!” he bellowed
outside. “He shot me in the ass!”

“
Dag straight!” Mr. Sladder
affirmed, waving his stump. “Come on back for another if ya like,
fatso!”

Penelope squealed, this time in delight. The
tiny gun had worked! But then Mr. Sladder said, very slowly:

“
What in creepin’ Moses is
this?”

Two more figures stepped in the doorway,
sleek, slim. They were just standing there. They looked
like…women.

—
Hello,
they said.

But what was that? What was going on?

—
We want to eat,
please!

They began to step forward.

“
You just turn right
around!” Mr. Sladder ordered.

The twin silhouettes continued.

“
I ain’t kiddin’,
sweethearts! Dag dabbit, I ain’t one fer shootin’ a couple of gals,
so don’t ya come no closer!”

The figures weren’t stopping, and clearly
weren’t going to.

“
Daggit! I warned ya, so
here it comes!”

Four even shots slapped in Penelope’s ears;
she clenched her teeth. When she looked again, the two figures were
still coming.

Mr. Sladder scurried back, dragged Penelope
out. “Come on, honey. Dag Saturday night specials, can’t hit fudge
with ’em. I musta missed all four times.”

“
Shoot more!” Penelope
screamed.

“
I ain’t got no more
bullets! Now come on!”

They scrambled down the
main stable walk, pushing through swing doors,
bam, bam, bam,
one after another. Mr.
Sladder burst through the last one before the exit and—

chunk.

But it wasn’t a
chunk
as much as a
resonant, wet
splap!
Mr. Sladder was standing straight as a pole, head bent back.
The ax blade was buried in the middle of his face, bisecting his
eyes.

“
Dag fat psychopath,” he
gurgled, staggering back. “Run, Nellapee…” Then he collapsed like a
bag of sticks.

Penelope’s blouse was torn open as she
turned to run. Two big soft hands plopped on her breasts and
pulled. Instantly she was aloft. She was being carried away.

She kicked and screamed. Hot breaths brushed
her ear. It was the ax-wielder, the horse-killer. He must’ve come
around the other side of the stable. His big hands roughly kneaded
her breasts and crotch as he carried her on.

—
Be careful with
her!
the odd slushy voice
demanded.

Slats of moonlight passed Penelope’s face.
The horse killer seemed to be sniffing her hair, and then he was
licking her neck. The harder Penelope squirmed, the more securely
she worked herself into his grasp.

Then she thought:
Plums.

It was an errant thought, yet very clear in
her mind. Plums. The average person certainly would find it
peculiar for a young woman to think of plums while being abducted
by a madman in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, the image
glowed: squashing plums, bursting them. She thrust her hand into
the figure’s trousers, into his briefs. His erection felt like a
hot bone. Thinking of plums, she grabbed his testicles and squeezed
them so hard her hand cramped.

The plums, disappointingly, did not burst.
But the figure’s wavering deep yowl was reward enough. He dropped
her at once and folded up in the impact of pain.

Penelope ran.

She trampled down the corridor, banging
through swing doors. No footsteps could be heard pursuing her. Next
she squealed in joy, for in a moment she bolted through the
exit.

The open night air felt
good on her exposed breasts. She used the moon’s ghostly light to
guide her out the gate and to the dark outline that was her
car.
I made it!
she thought.
I escaped!
God only knew where the horse-killer was taking
her, and what he planned to do. Penelope careered around her Datsun
ZX, jumped in behind the wheel, and slammed the door. She reached
for the ignition, had her fingers on the key, was about to turn the
engine over, and only then did she realize in slow, sinking horror
that someone was sitting beside her in the passenger
seat.

—

CHAPTER
6

“
Good to see you, Wade!
It’s good to have you back!”

“
Wha—” Wade said. A
waxlike, idiot grin opposed him as he stepped through the
vestibule. The lobby was dismal with cluttered dark and geometric
edges of tile shine. Standing thinly before him was Dean
Saltenstall.

“
It’s a pleasure to be
back, sir,” Wade, said, you
back stabbing two faced grinning
fruitbar.

The dean offered his hand, which Wade shook
with some reluctance.

“
Affluence is no excuse for
one to become separated from the real working world. Isn’t that
what life’s all about? Honest work?”

What do you know about
honest work, you blue blood hypocritical fuck?
“I couldn’t agree more, sir.”

“
Good, good! Then let’s
go.” The dean’s grin never faltered. “We start at the bottom and we
work our way up, right, Wade?”

Wade didn’t know what the old crank was
talking about, but he suspected that the reference to starting at
the bottom might have something to do with cleaning toilets for
minimum wage. They moved briskly down dim halls which smelled of
floor wax. Their heels clapped on shiny tile. Wade followed the
dean’s back, wishing for a slingshot.

“
I’m quite proud of our lab
facilities.” The dean looked like a sapling in a pinstripe suit.
Preposterously overstyled grayish hair made his tight tanned face
appear fake, like bad cosmetic surgery. “And I’m equally proud of
our maintenance staff.” He stopped at the door. The door read
“Janitorial.”

And the dean was beginning to snicker.

“
You’re doing this on
purpose, aren’t you?”

“
Of course,” the dean
said.

Wade fumbled. “Why?”

“
Why else? To teach you a
lesson. You’re a rich, pompous hooligan who’s been breaking my ass
for
six years.
But
now, finally, I get to return the favor. Justice is so
sweet.”

“
So that’s the game,” Wade
concluded.

“
Indeed it is, so I’d walk
softly from here on. Your father is at his final limit—your future
is in my hands now. One more mistake, Wade, just one more, and your
father will disown you.”

This Wade knew to be fact. He was in a
minefield now.

The dean’s grin turned evil, his true
colors. “I’m your lord and master from here on, Wade, and don’t you
forget it. The rules are simple. You will work this job to the full
satisfaction of the department, and you will carry out your duties
as prescribed by your immediate supervisor without hesitation and
without argument. Otherwise, you will be fired, and it will be my
personal pleasure to see that your father is promptly
notified.”

The dean had him now, and Wade knew it. If
he got fired, he’d be cut off for good. But at least it couldn’t
get any worse.

Or could it?

“
Did you say something
about a
supervisor?”

“
Indeed I did,” the dean
replied. “And here he is now.”

A door clicked shut. A shadow crossed the
room—huge, wide as a beer barrel. “Good to see you, Wade. Good to
have you back.”

“
No,” Wade muttered. “Not
you. Anyone but—”

Professor Besser came forward. He seemed to
be limping a bit. The plump, slyly smiling face and trimmed goatee
made him look like the devil on his way to the fat farm. “I can’t
tell you how enthused I am to be supervising you in your
new…position.”

The dean handed Wade rubber gloves, a smock,
and a toilet brush. “Tools of the trade, my boy.”

“
It’s fun work, Wade.”
Besser smiled. “As you’ll soon see.”

Wade took the “tools.” Then the dean turned
to Besser and said, “I’m afraid there’s been a mishap on the second
floor. It seems an entire bank of toilets became…clogged
simultaneously, and they overflowed. Ghastly mess, and quite
malodorous.”

“
I’m sure Wade will be
pleased to take care of it.”

“
And remember,” the dean
added, “honest work, Wade.” Then he threw his head back and
laughed, disappearing down the hall.

“
No time like the present,
eh?” Besser said. “You will clean every toilet in this building,
every day, and you will also mop every bathroom floor and scour
every sink. And you know what they say, don’t you? A job not done
right isn’t worth doing at all.”

“
Oh, is that what they
say?” Wade remarked.
One day I’ll clean
these toilets with your fat face. Now, that’s worth
doing.

“
I’ll be in my office
should you need me. Have fun, Wade.”

Wade simmered. But as Besser turned to
leave, Wade noticed something. Did Besser have a pendant around his
neck? It looked like a black amulet on a black string. It looked
like a cross.

But Besser was an atheist, like all college
professors. Why wear a cross?

“
Professor? Is that a cross
you’re wearing?”

Besser didn’t answer. Instead he looked back
with an unfocused gleam in his eye. Even more peculiar was what he
said next. “Great things may await you, Wade. The most wondrous
things.”

“
Huh?”

Almost dreamily, Besser walked away. And
that was odd too. He strode off in a quickened limp, like a man,
perhaps, who’d been recently shot in the buttocks.

««—»»

The compound gate hung
open, uncordoned.
Some crime scene,
Lydia Prentiss thought. Two more cruisers sat out
front, both with keys in the ignitions. She grabbed her field kits
and went in.

Field forensic experience was part of what
she’d been hired for. Equal opportunity was the other part, which
irked her because she knew she was the best cop in the department.
The others seemed pressed from the same mold—redneck, bigoted, and
barely anthropoid when it came to intelligence. Everyone spoke in
thick southern drawls, and everyone was lazy—though she supposed
this judgment, like all of them, was of her own prejudice. She took
things too seriously, she’d been told for her whole life. Her
college career counselor had told her she was a hypercritical
Type-A personality. Her watch commander at D.C. had told her she
was an insubordinate smart ass. These vain faults had always
haunted her, had made college very lonely, had kept her from making
friends, and had pushed her out of D.C. Not fired, really, just
urged to “move on.” She’d even been in love once—just once—and had
ruined that too. She’d ruined everything for herself.

Stop.
Why think of these things now?

Chief White didn’t like her, but at least he
respected her. The other officers were morons who only wanted to
get into her pants. They all regarded her as a blond curio, not a
cop.

She found Chief White and Sergeant Peerce in
the compound office. “What the hell’s going on?” she asked. “The
dispatcher calls me and says to get down here with my field gear
but doesn’t say why.”

“
That so?” White kicked
back in the chair. “Guess that means my dispatch is incompetent,
right? Like everyone else in this department, right? Except
you…right?”

Off to a great
start,
Lydia thought. “Chief, I only
meant—”

“
You meant that we’re just
a bunch of hick cops who don’t know nothin’ compared to slick city
sharpies like you.”

Peerce laughed. Lydia frowned.

Chief White must’ve been about fifty, with
short American Legion gray hair and a potbelly. Peerce was a big
South Georgia stupe: redneck sneer, Elvis sideburns, and
slicked back hair.

“
We gotta missing security
guard,” White told her, rubbing his temples. “Old rummy named
Sladder. We also got evidence a female student was out here with
him last night. And that’s just starters.”

“
There was a power
failure,” Peerce added. “Last anyone heard from Sladder was when he
called it in to Physical Plant and the power company. Only sign of
the old fucker is his wallet.”

“
His wallet?”

“
That’s right. Old fucker
musta dropped it. We also found a purse,” White said, pointing to a
slim purse on the desk. “Belongs to a student, Penelope somethin’,
lives over in Lillian Hall. I got Porker out lookin’ for her.
Peerce already been over the stables, but I want you to have a look
too, judgin’ the seriousness of the situation.”

“
Seriousness? A wallet and
purse? What’s the big deal?”

White’s snide grin
vanished. “Show her the
big deal,
Peerce.