The Mall of Cthulhu (22 page)

She looked at her watch. Eighteen minutes had elapsed since she'd walked into the house. The police should be here soon. Assuming they'd been called. But she hadn't found anything interesting, and she still had to check the basement.

She'd just opened the door to the basement when she heard yelling outside. "Johnson!" a voice said. At the sound of this voice, the dog barking got further and further away from the back door and now seemed to be coming from the front. "Goddammit, shut your fucking dog up!"

Laura descended to the basement and peeked out of the basement window. She saw a fortyish black man standing outside the gate yelling at the house while the dog barked at the gate in front of him. "I work all night! Sleep deprivation can make a man do crazy shit, Johnson! Don't be surprised if something happens to this dog! Police won't do shit, so don't be surprised if somebody comes over here and does the neighborhood a favor one day!"

The man looked at the dog. "Shut the fuck up, ugly." He walked away, disgusted, and Laura began to search the basement. She wondered how exactly she was going to get out of here.

The basement was surprisingly clean. An immaculate furnace and water heater sat on unfinished concrete. There were no cobwebs, no piles of musty cardboard boxes, no old bicycles, nothing that looked basement-like at all. Except, of course, for the coffin freezer behind the furnace.

Given what Dick Johnson had done to his buddy in the temple, Laura thought it was a distinct possibility that there was actually a body in the coffin freezer. She threw the lid open and found only boxes and boxes of frozen dinners. She rooted through these. "Hmmm . . . Turkey . . . Meatloaf . . . Salisbury steak . . . what's this?" Amidst all the "Big Eater" frozen dinners was one "Light 'n' Active" frozen dinner. It felt significantly lighter than the others, but Laura supposed that was to be expected. Upon closer examination, though, she found that one end of the "Light n' Active" frozen dinner featuring grilled chicken and brown rice pilaf had been opened and retaped. Throwing caution to the wind, Laura ripped the box open.

A thin, leather-bound book tumbled out.

The green leather of the outside was completely blank. Inside, the title page bore handwritten cursive script that said: Ye Keye To The Fpirit Worlde, as Fhown in Ye Anciente Necronomicon.

So this must be the key to the dangerous parts of the
Necronomicon
that Marrs had talked about. Now they wouldn't need some cryptologist to crack the code. Once Marrs had his hands on it, they might find a way to bring Ted back! Laura felt a thrill of triumph and tucked the book under her other arm and headed upstairs. Now she just had to get past the dog again. She went and opened the back door a crack, and Fido came limping toward the door, barking. She closed the door and listened as Fido barked and scratched at it. Well, it appeared that he wasn't running as fast as he used to, which should help her plan.

Laura peeked out the front door. She stretched out her legs and hoped some part of her body remembered all those gymnastic meets back in middle school.

Throwing the door open, she ran for the front gate. She had only gotten a few strides up the front walk when the front door slammed closed. This brought Fido limping around the front. Without breaking stride, Laura ran to the white fence at the front, placed her right hand on the wooden ball atop the gate and swung her legs over the gate. A perfect vault, and she stuck the dismount. Fido barked on the other side of the gate while Laura pointed her arms skyward. "Ten-point-oh!" she shouted.

Book in hand, she ran back to Marrs' rental car, feeling exhilarated and relieved. She'd gotten something very important, she hadn't been injured, and she was going to get Ted back.

She started the car, then pulled out her phone to call Marrs. Her hands were all sweaty from being nervous, and the phone slipped out of her hand and onto the floor of the car. She bent down to retrieve the phone and heard a fantastically loud BOOM! She was showered with glass that she gauged had come from the back window, and she heard a man yelling, "Race traitor! Thief! If that shot did not dispatch you, I shall make you beg for the sweet mercy of death!"

Christ. It was Ted's Mr. Average, who must, she thought, be Dick Johnson. Without raising her head, Laura threw the car into reverse and hit the gas. She felt a thump as she hit something she hoped was Dick Johnson and not his justifiably aggrieved neighbor. Peeking up, she threw the car into drive and hit the gas.

She heard another boom and felt a sharp pain in her shoulder. She glanced down and saw a tiny spot of blood. It must have been a shotgun.

Laura looked back and saw a man limping toward an Ocean State Power van. She began to panic. She had no idea where she was or what was the best way to lose this guy. She had imagined a thousand car-chase scenarios in Boston, but she knew the streets of Boston. She knew nothing about Providence. Heart pounding, she called Marrs.

"I've got something!" she yelled into the phone, "but I'm being pursued!"

"This is your idea of avoiding confrontation?"

"Yes! I am fleeing! Get it?"

"All right. Do not discharge your weapon," Marrs said. "It's still your FBI gun, and the ballistics will be on file."

Laura spun the car around a corner and heard another shot.

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Lose them. Hang on, I can track you here . . . Okay, got it. You're two blocks from 95. Once you're on the highway, you've got eight cylinders of American engine under the hood. They should have a difficult time pursuing you.

"I see it!" Laura said as she spotted the sign for 95 North. She allowed herself to feel relief. She exhaled and felt her shoulders relax when a shock went through the car and she found herself spinning out of control.

"Fuck!" she screamed. When the car came to a stop, she looked around and saw that she'd just been rammed in the driver's side by a big Dodge pickup. The driver's side window was shattered, and William Castle was getting out of the Dodge and walking toward the car with something in his hand. Laura could feel the beginnings of a powerful headache starting behind her eyes, and now her left shoulder had an ache to match the sharp pain of the shotgun pellet lodged in her right shoulder.

"Please keep working," she begged the car. She hit the gas and felt the car move forward with a definite shimmy. She gunned it and headed for the highway. With a great deal of effort, the car got up to seventy miles per hour, but the steering wheel was shaking in Laura's hand and the car felt like it might break apart. Another bump from behind, and Laura saw that another white guy in another pickup truck was ramming her from behind.

She had no idea how many of them there were, but they seemed confident that she was not part of a bigger force, because they were not shy about ramming the shit out of her.

Remembering Marrs, Laura held up the phone. "Marrs, are you still there?" she said.

"I am. And yourself?"

"Just barely. Listen, what the . . . I don't know what the fuck to do here. This car has had it."

"Don't worry. The credit card I used to rent it bills directly to the blind trust that holds all the assets of the Vice President of the United States. Kind of a clever bit of computer chicanery, if I do say so myself. I liked it so much I rented a Dodge Viper after you took the Lincoln—"

"I'm more worried about my life than how you're going to pay for the goddamn car," she yelled. "I know what to do in Boston, but not here! I don't know how to lose them!"

"Then go to Boston. Do you think the car will survive another hour?"

"Well, nothing's on fire yet."

"Good. Go to Boston. Keep your phone with you. I can track you and hopefully use something less traceable than your service weapon to help you. I'm leaving now, and I will assist you as best I can."

"Okay. Thanks."

She spun into the next lane in time to avoid another tap from the pickup.

After five minutes, she was able to coax the car up to eighty. Traffic got heavier, and the pickup did not try to ram her again. As she glanced back through what used to be the windshield, though, she saw that the pickup had been joined by an Ocean State Power truck and a slightly dented red Dodge pickup. So if they'd given up on trying to kill her on the road, they were just going to wait until she stopped. Well, they were in for a surprise.

After what felt like hours, she finally came to the exit for 138. This would be the hardest part—taking this two-lane road into Boston. She cut across three lanes of traffic and pulled off the exit. She hoped that would buy her some time. She made it through the intersection just as the light turned. Behind her, the red Dodge had taken the lead and continued to follow her.

Through Mattapan Square and onto Blue Hill Ave, she spun the car onto Morton Street. It crossed her mind to stop here and get out of the car in the middle of an almost completely black neighborhood, just to see if these guys would dare to follow her. But she figured it wouldn't be responsible law enforcement to expose the good people of Mattapan to armed racists full of homicidal rage. She sped down Morton Street with Franklin Park on her right. She took a sharp right as though she were going to drive under the road that bisects the park and come out on Forest Hills Street. Instead, just as she got to the underpass, she stopped the car and sprinted up the crumbling staircase, dodging the nip bottles and used condoms, and ran into the park. Once she reached the top, splinters of granite flew into her arm. They were down on the road, shooting at her. Well, they'd have to do better than that.

She crossed the street and quickly found the path that led to the hundred steps that went up the hill through the woods. Powered by adrenaline, she took the hundred granite steps two at a time. Once she reached the top, she found the metal 55-gallon drum with the plastic garbage bag inside. "Don't Trash Your Park!" a sticker on the side of the drum implored, "Park Your Trash!" She looked down and saw William Castle wheezing his way up the steps. She rolled the drum down and watched with delight as it took him out at the knees. He went sprawling and struck his head on one of the granite steps. He lay on a landing bleeding profusely from his head, with his leg splayed out at an angle no unbroken leg could manage. One down.

"Who else wants some?" she shouted. No one answered. Cutting to the left, Laura took to the woods, picked up a substantial stick, and crouched to wait. Only thirty seconds later, a white man she didn't recognize emerged at the top of the stairs. He had gone around to cut her off. Or else he was just a white guy out for a walk in the park.

"Brother William!" she heard him yell as he saw the prone form of his fellow cultist down the steps. Without waiting for further confirmation, Laura threw the stick as hard as she could. It struck her would-be attacker on top of the head, and by the time he had turned around to see where the blow had come from, Laura was already leaping toward him. She delivered a kick to the sternum that sent this guy falling down the stairs as well. He screamed as he fell, and there were two horrible cracks as his limbs broke against the granite steps. Adrenaline won out over nausea, and Laura ran back into the woods trying not to think about what she'd just done to two fellow human beings.

It wasn't long before she heard the voice of Mr. Average, Dick Johnson. "Surrender the book, and I will kill you quickly," he called into the woods.

"Are you afraid, Dick?" Laura called out. "Is your Johnson shriveling up?"

"Oh, it is you who should be afraid. Do you think your efforts can stop us? Our victory is inevitable! Emerge from the wilderness and I will put a bullet in your brain, thus sparing you the torment of enslavement once the Old Ones come back to rule."

"Come and get me," Laura called out. Her mind worked feverishly. Dick Johnson had a gun and she didn't. She knew the woods and he didn't. She wanted him alive. She came to a clearing where she found the remains of a campfire, an empty half-pint bottle of gin, a tiny plastic bag that had once held crack and, of course, a used condom. Good old Franklin Park. Hovering over the campfire was a seven-foot-tall puddingstone boulder. Laura went to the back of it and climbed up, hiding herself from the path where she heard Dick Johnson approaching.

When she was sure Dick Johnson was in the clearing, Laura leapt from the boulder, hoping to drop on him. Unfortunately, he was a few feet behind where she thought he would be, so she ended up leaping onto the hard dirt and found herself looking up at the barrel of Dick Johnson's gun.

"The book, young lady, and your death shall be far more merciful than you deserve."

She had practiced disarming from this position in Krav Maga class, but nothing prepared her for what happened. She reached up and pulled Dick Johnson forward by the gun. As she did so, Dick Johnson squeezed the trigger, and the gun went off, shooting a bullet into the ground between her knees, showering her with dirt, and nearly deafening her in the process.

As Dick Johnson fell forward, Laura brought a knee into his neck, and he fell, gasping to the ground. Laura grabbed his gun and stood up, out of range of any kicks or blows Dick Johnson might deliver.

She was holding a gun that would never be traced to her over the man responsible for sending Ted to another dimension. "How do I get Ted back?" she said to Dick Johnson.

He started laughing. "Ted? That bumbling idiot? Great Cthulhu is feasting upon his soul."

"Bullshit. How do I get him back?"

"You don't! Your only hope of ever seeing your friend again is setting me free to bring Cthulhu back. Then perhaps you will recognize your lover Ted as a stain on Great Cthulhu's foot. Ha! You are defeated, and your love is gone forever!"

Vastly amused at his own joke, Dick Johnson laughed, clutching his stomach. Without thinking, Laura approached and kicked him squarely under his jaw. She watched with satisfaction as half a tooth shot out of his mouth. "Laugh at me again," she said. "Laugh at my grief. Laugh at my friendship." The gun shook in her hand, and Dick Johnson apparently sensed that Laura had gone over the line to irrationality, into that place where anything is possible.