Off Season - Jack Ketchum [77]
For a terrible moment Nick imagined he would have to go on killing the boy forever, that he would never stop. He shifted to one side and slashed at him with the driftwood again and again, hitting him across the shoulders and head, and still the boy clung to him and clawed at him, even after Nick saw his collarbone protruding through the back of his neck. Nick lashed out blindly until finally the boy lay still, his head a muculent pool of blood and slime.
And then there was silence. It confused him. There ought to have been more of them. How many had he killed? Five? There were more children. Another man. The two women. Had he killed the women? He didn’t think so. The silence glided over him like a net. He rubbed his smoke-filled eyes and peered beyond the billowing fire and saw Marjie trying to rise up on one elbow. Behind the veil of smoke he saw the naked boy standing alone at the cage door, his black eyes seeming to gaze in Nick’s direction. Who was he? Nick knew he could not be one of them.
Then he saw the thin, gaunt man gripping the cage and trying to rise. Someone had wounded him. Who? When? Through the violence of his own pain he realized that the man was badly hurt, that it would be some time before he was dangerous again. But where were the others?
The right lens of his glasses was broken. It was amazing he had them at all. He pushed them up on his nose and turned his head to look behind him. There was nothing there. No one. He looked at the body of the boy he had shot, twisted and sprawled behind the fire, at the half-naked bald man crumbled beside him, at the two children he had beaten to death, at the dark body sputtering on the fire. Dead. All dead. And miraculously, the others had vanished. His sigh of relief rattled hideously in his throat. He turned to attend to Marjie.
It was hard to know where or how to touch her. Her body was covered with blood, and Nick could tell that most of it was her own. She was still trying to sit up.
“No,” he said, “stay there. It’s over now. Please, don’t move. I’ll find something to cover you with, and then we’ll see about getting you out of here.” His voice seemed strangely high-pitched to him. His teeth chattered and he quivered uncontrollably.
He stood up slowly and found that, as long as he moved very carefully, the leg would support him. He picked up the driftwood and the empty pistol just in case. He walked to the cage and saw what was left of Laura in a pile against the wall. He turned quickly away before the dead fish-eye stare and the open black mouth made him puke.
The wounded man was still trying to haul himself up on the bars of the cage. Nick smiled grimly and rapped him hard across the knuckles with the driftwood. The man groaned and slid heavily to the ground.
At his approach the naked boy stared at him fearfully and faded back into the cage. Nick supposed that was security for him now. He wondered how long the boy had been here and what the boy had seen. He could think of nothing to say that might make him feel that it was over now, so he passed him by without acknowledgment.
He found Marjie’s torn shirt and jeans and guessed that they were cleaner than anything else the place had to offer. He knew he should cover her somehow and keep her warm to ward off shock. He noticed the entrance to the second cave. It worried him. Could someone still be hiding there? He realized now that this was where the children had disappeared to earlier. Could they have done so again?
He peered inside and heard something