999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [202]
“Let’s see if he can stand,” John said.
Romero allowed his eyelids to flicker.
“He’s coming around,” Mark said.
“Then he can help us.”
They carried him into the open. He moved his head from side to side, as if aroused by the cold night air. They put him in the back of the pickup truck. Two brothers stayed with him while the other drove. The night was so cold that he allowed himself to shiver.
“Yeah, definitely coming around,” John said.
The truck stopped. He was lifted out and carried into a field. Allowing his eyelids to open a little farther, Romero was amazed at how bright the moon was. He saw that the field was the same one that he had seen the brothers tilling and removing stones from the day before.
They set him on his feet.
He pretended to waver.
Heart pounding, he knew that he had to do something soon. Until now, he had felt helpless against the three of them. The barn had been too constricting a place in which to try to fight. He needed somewhere in the open, somewhere that allowed him to run. This field was going to have to be it. Because he knew without a doubt that this was where they intended to kill him.
“Put him on his knees,” John said.
“It’s still not too late to stop this,” Mark said.
“Have you lost your faith?”
“I …”
“Answer me. Have you lost your faith?”
“… No.”
“Then put him on his knees.”
Romero allowed himself to be lowered. His heart was beating so frantically that he feared it would burst against his ribs. A sharp stone hurt his knees. He couldn’t allow himself to react.
They leaned him forward on his hands. Like an animal. His neck was exposed.
“Prove your faith, Mark.”
Something scraped, a knife being pulled from a scabbard.
It glinted in the moonlight.
“Take it,” John said.
“But—”
“Prove your faith.”
A long tense pause.
“Yes,” John said. “Lord, accept this sacrifice in thanks for the glory of your earth and the bounty that comes from it. The blood of—”
Feeling another sharp rock, this one beneath his palm, Romero gripped it, spun, and hurled it as strongly as he could at the head of the figure nearest him. The rock made a terrible crunching noise, the figure groaning and dropping, as Romero charged to his feet and yanked the knife from Mark’s hands. He drove it into Mark’s stomach and stormed toward the remaining brother, whom he recognized as John because of the pistol in his hand. But before Romero could strike him with the knife, John stumbled back, aiming, and Romero had no choice except to hurl the knife. It hit John, but whether it injured him, Romero couldn’t tell. At least it made John stumble back farther, his aim wide, the gunshot plowing into the earth, and by then Romero was racing past the pickup truck, into the lane, toward the house.
John fired again. The bullet struck the pickup truck.
Running faster, propelled by fear, Romero saw the lights of the house ahead and veered to the left so he wouldn’t be a silhouette. A third shot, a bullet buzzing past him, shattered a window in the house. He stretched his legs to the maximum. His chest heaved. As the house got larger before him, he heard the roar of the pickup truck behind him. I have to get off the lane. He veered farther to the left, scrambled over a rail fence, and raced across a field of chard, his panicked footsteps mashing the tender shoots.
Headlights gleamed behind him. The truck stopped. A fourth shot broke the silence of the valley. John obviously assumed that in this isolated area there was a good chance a neighbor wouldn’t hear. Or care. Trouble with coyotes.
A fifth shot stung Romero’s left shoulder. Breathing rapidly and hoarsely, he zigzagged. At the same time, he bent forward, running as fast as he could while staying low. He came to another fence, squirmed between its