Off Season - Jack Ketchum [81]
He whirled when he heard them because for all he knew they were back again, and he knew instantly he’d made a mistake; recognized the fear in their faces and saw that they were ready to shoot him. So he threw out his hands to show them that they were empty and to wave them away, and he opened his mouth to tell them No, he was not one of them but the words dried up in his throat when he saw the fat man’s eyes and he tossed himself to one side and never even heard the explosion.
Peters saw the glasses fly and something in him that did not exactly register the word glasses did register that something was not right somehow, but the man had turned on him and his hands had gone out, not up; and there was no question about the other man, who looked wounded bad but who suddenly bolted toward them in a low crouch, sporting a black-handled knife.
The moment Peters saw the knife he fired. It was odd, though, that even before he fired he seemed to see the blood there. Or maybe it was the bloodstain he fired at, maybe it was already there, between his legs. It all happened much too fast to say. But in any case Peters hit what he aimed at. The man fell face down, his legs jerking back as if somebody had pulled a rug out from under him. When they turned him over there was nothing left at all below the belly except a pair of legs. He wasn’t quite dead.
Later, Peters felt worst about the boy—even worse than about the one the girl called Nick. But again, they were all unglued by then and with damn good reason, though at the time he seemed to know that there was something wrong about the boy, that the look in his eyes did not exactly jibe with the bloodlust frenzy he’d seen below.
But God knows the boy was strange enough, walking toward them, naked, with his arms held out in front of him, walking in that slow, dreamlike glide. And when Peters told him to stop he didn’t stop or even hesitate at all, and by then they were taking no chances. It was impossible to say who killed him. Six shotguns opened up on him at once, and what was left of him was not going to fill up a good-sized shopping bag.
But Peters felt bad, real bad, about the boy. The boy was going to haunt him for a long, long time.
When it was over, Willis and the rest of his party came jostling in behind them. Willis took a look around and whistled softly. “What the hell is this?” he said.
“This?” said Peters. “This is where I get off.”
And Willis seemed to know what he meant by that.
5:35 A.M.
The last of the bastards died on the way up the hill to the Hallan place, where the prowl cars waited. Peters thought that a normal man wouldn’t even have gone that long. In the end he pointed his face to the sea and vomited up a little blood, and they carried him into the clearing, pale as a ghost. Peters couldn’t say it made him sorry. The ambulance was there. It didn’t do Caggiano any good, though. He was dead before they left the beach.
As for the girl—well, they’d just have to wait and see. It seemed to Peters that she was pretty bad. She was going to lose the little finger on her right hand. It was bit clean through. Compound fracture of the right leg. And one of her breasts was a terrible mess. Running a pretty strong fever, too. Still, she might make it. It all depended on how tough she was. She didn’t look tough. Skinny little thing.
That made him think of Shearing. He guessed it would be Willis who told the wife and kids. Probably it ought to be me, he thought, but I’m afraid I’m not up to that. She said that guy Nick had saved her life, he thought. Cried like a baby. And I killed him. Then she said that the kid was wrong, too. My God. Twentythree years and nothing, absolutely nothing, to mar the record. Oh, there were a few things you had to do that didn’t make you feel so good, sure, but nothing like this. An innocent boy dead, and a man who must have walked through hell