Off Season - Jack Ketchum [57]
Soon they appeared below with the other children and the big man who was without a left hand now, thanks to him, and the two remaining women, leading Laura between them. It surprised him to see Laura still alive. So maybe there was a chance, he thought. Maybe they wouldn’t kill them. Maybe he could do something.
He saw Marjie’s eyes go to the window and, risking discovery, he waved at her. He needed her to know he was there and alive, that if possible he would help her. He saw her nod once to him and then glance down again. If she kept her head, he might be able to get her away from them somehow. He slid back a few inches into the darkness and waited.
It was obvious that they thought that he’d escaped them. There was a lot of unintelligible shouting going on at first and then the two men—the two whole men, he thought with satisfaction—edged slowly into the scrub. He could hear them running and then stopping to listen, running again, fanning outward through the brush. He was damn glad he was not out there. They were in their element out there in the woods.
The others waited. In a while one of the men—the thin one with the scruffy beard—returned alone. He guessed they were leaving the other man behind to search for him. Laura had fallen to her knees in some kind of stupor, and he saw the man lift her roughly to her feet and turn her away from him, then push both girls in the direction of the fire on the hill. They’ve had enough for one night, he thought. They’re going home. That gives us time.
He knew it depended on him now. He felt his responsibility like a physical weight. Yet for a moment he could think of nothing to do. Without the cars or the phone they were still completely isolated. By the time he found another house, Marjie and Laura might be dead. How much time, he thought, before they killed them? How much have I got?
No answers came to him. He felt himself give way to self-pity and despair. They had attacked and nearly broken him, just as by now they’d attacked every woman he’d ever loved. The one he’d loved the best of all lay dead out there, and she had suffered horribly before she died. He could not let that happen to Marjie. He remembered with a kind of amazement his crazy stand on the attic stairs, and all at once he knew what he would do. He pushed his glasses up over the bridge of his nose and, motionless, he waited.
His senses felt keen and alert. He barely turned to watch them as they moved past the fire. Only enough to allow his eyes to trace their route over the hill and determine in what direction they were going. He heard Marjie cry out as she passed the charred corpse of her sister. Then there was silence.
When they were almost out of sight he lowered himself slowly over the shingles to the side of the house opposite them, and when he reached the aluminum gutter, dropped silently to the ground, trying to dismiss as best he could the shock of pain that coursed through his leg muscles and sent a quick spasm sliding through his cheek. He worked his way carefully to the front of the house, watching for the man in red, and saw that at least for now, he was alone. He went inside.
Glancing over heaps of wreckage his eyes scanned the floor for the pistol, praying that they’d left it behind. The pistol meant everything now. He found it in the living room, lying beside the attic steps,