Helltown (18 page)

Steve picked up the rifle and held it across his chest so it was clearly visible. Jenny was asking him what he was doing. He wasn’t listening. Every instinct in his body was telling him that this wasn’t right, that he was in danger. He couldn’t say why this might be the case, not right then, not keyed up on adrenaline and stressed out of his mind with horror and grief. But now was not the time to question his instincts.

The approaching vehicle sported the roofline of a sedan and the flatbed of a pickup. It skidded to a halt behind the Jeep and Buick. Both front doors opened and two men emerged. The driver was bookish and harmless looking, and Steve might have let down his guard had it not been for the other man. He was tall, maybe six feet. Beneath shoulder-length greasy black hair he had a hard, no-bullshit face, and beneath a protruding brow he had hard, no-bullshit eyes to match. The muttonchops and handlebar mustache shouted “redneck,” and he might have been a comical stereotype had he not been so…hard. That was the word that kept coming back to Steve. Hard.

Steve tightened his grip on the rifle.

“Jesus Mary!” the bookish man exclaimed. “Lonnie? That Lonnie? You shot Lonnie, you sumbitch!”

“Who are you?” Steve demanded.

“Who’m I? Who’m
I
? You shot Lonnie, you motherfucker!”

The hard man held up his hand, signaling the other to calm down. “We’re from next door,” he said. His manner wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t angry or disapproving either. It was like a cop’s: cool but alert, aloof but calculating. “We heard the gunshot, came to see what happened. He dead?”

“He’s alive,” Jenny said. “He needs to get to the hospital.” 

“Right-o.” He took a step forward.

Steve pointed the rifle at him. “Stop.”

The man stopped.

“Steve!” Jenny said. “They can help!”

“Jenny, get inside.”

“Steve—”

“Get inside!”

“Whoa there,” the hard man said. “That’s no way to speak to a lady.”

“How many gunshots did you hear?”

The man didn’t smile, not quite, but his face twitched, as if he were smiling to himself, and Steve knew right then it didn’t matter the answer he gave, he was dangerous. The man’s eyes flicked from Noah to the man named Lonnie and he said, “Two.”

“Jenny, get inside,” Steve repeated.

This time she didn’t argue. She stood and backed up slowly. Steve backed up also.

“Now, say,” the hard man said. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know who you are or why you’re here,” Steve said, “but you come any closer, I’ll shoot you.” He pulled the stock tighter against his shoulder.

“Hey, okay, take it easy—”

Stumbling backward across the threshold into the house, Steve slammed the front door shut, flicked the thumblock, and shot the bolt.

CHAPTER 14

“Good Ash, bad Ash. I’m the guy with the gun.”

Army of Darkness
(1992)

Beetle turned off the shower taps and dried himself with the towel he’d draped over the curtain rod. He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped over the lip of the bathtub. Steam had turned the mirror above the sink opaque. He cleared a circle with his hand to view his reflection. He ran his fingers over a few of the shrapnel scars that tattooed his chest and right shoulder. He hated the sight of them, the feel of them. They reminded him that he should have died with the rest of his platoon on the beach in Grenada. He wished he had too. Sarah would have remembered him fondly, with love. She would not have grown to hate him. They would have avoided all the pain and suffering of the last two years.

It could have been different, of course—Grenada, his life with Sarah, everything. If the chopper hadn’t missed the designated beach drop-off in front of the university campus, if it hadn’t set down hundreds of yards away in the middle of enemy territory, the mission to rescue the American students could have gone as planned. But that was the thing with life: there were no second chances, no rewinding time.

Burt Jackson and Big Dave died within seconds of each other. Small arms fire erased their faces, flinging them to the ground and knocking off their helmets. Shortly after this a mortar round blew Oklahoma Eddy to confetti. The detonation was close enough to Beetle it charged the air around him and splattered him with Eddy’s blood and guts.

The rest of the platoon was slaughtered in a similar fashion. In the chaos and confusion only Beetle and two other Rangers made it to the shanties beyond the shoreline, where they escaped into the zigzag of back streets and hunkered down in a derelict café. Otter, an anti-tank gunner, had been shot in the back, Pips, a sniper, in the leg. Beetle put pressure on Pip’s wound and told him he was going to be okay, lies, he knew, because the bullet had severed a main artery or vein. Pips died listening to those lies a few minutes later. Knowing Otter was next if he didn’t receive proper medical attention, Beetle set off on his own to the nearby abandoned Russian Embassy in the hopes of finding a two-way radiotelephone. He killed two Cuban soldiers he came across with his bare hands so as not to raise an alarm and reached the embassy undetected. Inside he discovered the power was out and retrieved a first-aid kit as consolation. While leaving he turned a corner and bumped chest-to-chest into a lone Russian diplomat.

Beetle recognized him immediately. The day before the man had driven alone to Point Salines to deliver an official message from his government to the senior American commander at the recently captured airfield. Beetle and another Ranger had searched him and his car. He had been polite and respectful and thanked them when they finished their search and handed him back his wallet, inside of which he carried a photograph of two beautiful daughters.

The diplomat didn’t recognize Beetle, not bloody and dusty, his face painted in black camouflage, his eyes alight with the craziness of watching several of his brothers die and killing two men with his bare hands, all within the last hour.

The diplomat tried to run. Beetle caught him easily and tied him up with telephone cord. It took him ten minutes of agonizing before he worked himself up to kill the man. It had to be done, he told himself. He didn’t know how long he and Otter were going to have to hide out on the small island, behind enemy lines. It could be weeks or months. The man might be a civilian, and a father of two, but he was still allied with the enemy.

Beetle killed him as he had the Cubans, wrapping his arms around the man’s head from behind and twisting sharply to the right. Back at the café Beetle disinfected Otter’s wound and bandaged him up. They spoke of their families until they fell asleep, but when Beetle woke in the middle of the night, Otter was dead.

The following day US Forces took control of Grenada, the leader of the rebellion was captured, and just like that the invasion was over—and Beetle was sent home to resume life as normal.

A knock at the door caused Beetle to jump. He realized he’d been staring at his reflection for five minutes or so. Long enough, at any rate, for the mist to clear from the mirror.

Beetle exited the bathroom. The door to the hallway didn’t have a peephole.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Open up.” The voice was rough, deep.

“Who is it?”

“Open up!”

Beetle went to the bed. He tossed the towel onto the mattress, then pulled on a pair of laundered boxers from his rucksack.

“Hey!” the man shouted. “This is your last warning!”

Beetle dressed in the same jeans and woodland camouflage shirt he’d had on earlier. He slipped the Beretta into the waistband of the jeans, fitting it snugly against the small of his back.

He returned to the door. On the other side of it he heard at least two people conversing in low tones. A moment later a key turned in the lock. The door swung inward.

Two large men wearing wool sweaters and reeking of BO stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. The one on the left had a shaved head and a bulldog face with flaxen, almost nonexistent eyebrows. The one on the right had dark hair and a matching goatee. The family resemblance, however, was unmistakable. Behind them, scowling, was the shylock from the reception.

“This him, dad?” Bulldog said.

“That’s him,” Shylock said.

Bulldog’s scowl mimicked his father’s. “So, you like beating up old men, do you?”

“He tried to rip me off,” Beetle said simply.

“It don’t matter what he did. You don’t go beating on old men, especially when it’s my dad.”

“Would you prefer me to beat on you?” Beetle asked.

Bulldog’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in anger. “Is that a threat, you piece of shit?”

“You come to my room, you bang on my door, you get in my face. If you don’t want a beating, what the fuck do you want?”

“I want you out of my motel!” Shylock crowed, wiping his red rose with the back of his hand. “And don’t even think about asking for no money back.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Beetle said.

“Damn right I am.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“I don’t care
what
you think, asshole,” Bulldog said, reaching for him.

Beetle swatted his hand aside and stepped backward, luring him into the narrow entryway.

Bulldog took the bait, lunging forward. He grabbed Beetle’s shirt with both meaty fists. Beetle—who was trained not to think in a fight, only act or react—instinctively kicked Bulldog’s right kneecap, causing him to cry out and sink to his other knee. Beetle curled his fist into a rock and drove his fore knuckle and middle knuckle into the bridge of Bulldog’s nose. There was an audible crunch. Blood gushed.

“My nose!” Bulldog cried. “Owww! My fucking nose! Owww!”

Beetle struck him again in the same spot. He shut up and fell to his side, cupping his nose and rocking in agony.

Goatee was trying to get to Beetle without stepping on his brother. Beetle backed into the room proper, giving them both space to maneuver.

Goatee came at him, swinging a haymaker. Beetle stepped into the attack, blocking the blow with his left arm while chopping Goatee across the ribs with his right hand. Goatee grunted. Beetle drove a straight right into his gaping jaw, probably dislocating it. Goatee made a noise that sounded like “Oh?” and dropped to the floor.

Beetle moved purposely toward Shylock, who stood statue-still in the hallway, as if rooted there by fear. Beetle withdrew the Beretta and shoved the barrel against the man’s forehead. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust himself to speak. His breathing came in quick, rough snorts. His trigger finger quivered.

Beetle waited for Shylock to give him a reason to pull the trigger, but the old cheat only made a pathetic, whimpering sound, and just like that Beetle came back to himself. He blinked away the red haze that had crept over his vision, and he heard himself growl: “You’re going to go into my room, you’re going to collect your sons, and the three of you are going to get out of my sight. You come back, you bother me again, I will kill you. You and whoever you bring. I will end all your miserable, meaningless lives right then and there. Do you understand that? Do you believe me?”

The old cheat bobbed his head.

Beetle lowered the pistol—reluctantly. “Then get to it before I change my fucking mind.”

CHAPTER 15

“Who will survive and what will be left of them?”

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
 (1974) 

“They have guns,” Steve said. He had turned off the foyer light and was peering through the front window. The Jeep’s and utility coupe’s high beams allowed him to see in the black night clearly enough. The bookish man had retrieved a rifle from the car. The hard man had produced a machete—
a goddamn machete
—from where it had been tucked against the small of his back. The rain had begun to fall harder, but neither of them seemed to notice or care.

“Who are they, Steve?” Jenny said in a frightened voice. She stood a couple feet behind him.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Why are they here? If they were lying about hearing the gunshots, how’d they know to come?
What the hell’s going on?
”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Maybe we should, I don’t know, maybe we should—

“Shit.”

“
What?
”

“They’ve backed into the fog. I can’t see them anymore.”

“Wait—that’s good, right?” she said hopefully. “Maybe that means, maybe they’re going?”

“Without their car?”

“Well, what then? What are they doing then—”

“I don’t know!” Steve snapped.

“Steve, don’t yell. I’m scared, okay? I’m freaking terrified. Are we going to die?
Are we going to die?
”

“Jenny, shut up!”

“Don’t yell, Steve! Don’t!” He could hear her hyperventilating. “I, we, God, we need to call the police—”

“There’s no phone.”

“There has to be.”

She began fussing around the room, yanking open drawers, tossing boxes aside. Steve didn’t move from the window. He assumed the two men had retreated out of sight to converse privately. It seemed pointless, considering he couldn’t have heard them anyway. Maybe they thought he could read lips.

Jenny crossed the hallway to the dining room.

She screamed.

For a moment Steve was convinced she’d been shot. But when he turned, she was standing in the entranceway to the dining room, both hands covering her mouth. He went to her, put his arm around her shoulder, and led her away from the dead boy.

“What did you
do
, Steve?” she whispered, her eyes glistening with tears. “What did you and Noah
do
? That’s why they’re coming after us, isn’t it? They know you killed that boy, and now they’re going to kill us for payback.”

“That’s impossible, Jen. The boy died, it was an accident, the radiator fell on him, but that only happened ten minutes ago. The old man came home minutes later. He didn’t call anybody. Nobody called anybody. Nobody could have known.”