The Devil's Right Hand - J. D. Rhoades [74]
It was DeWayne Puryear.
For a moment, Keller sat there in shock. His first thought was that he was hallucinating, that he had finally gone off the deep end. But the look of shock on Puryear’s face convinced him that he wasn’t imagining it. Puryear dropped out of sight as Keller sprang to his feet. The receptionist looked alarmed. “Mr. Keller?” she said. Then she screamed as Keller sprang to the window. He looked out to see a figure on its hands and knees, scuttling towards the garden gate.
Even with the heavy chair beneath him, DeWayne had to stand on his toes to look in the window. There was a woman sitting at a desk, talking on the telephone. DeWayne looked beyond her to the waiting room. A man sat in one of the waiting room chairs, hunched slightly forward with his elbows on his knees. The man looked up. Their eyes locked.
“Holy shit!” DeWayne whispered and threw himself backwards in a reflexive attempt to get away. He attempted to turn in the air like a cat, but he lacked a cat’s instinctive grace. He landed on his side with a painful grunt. Immediately he scrambled to his hands and knees and propelled himself towards the gate. He stumbled to his feet just as he reached the gate. He ripped it open and sprinted for the parking lot. He bellowed at Debbie to start the car.
Keller bolted out of the parlor room and toward the front door. He yanked it open in time to see DeWayne sprinting towards the car he had seen earlier in the parking lot. He was halfway across the porch in one stride, down the steps in another, then halfway to the parking lot. He saw DeWayne turn slightly and pull something from his jeans. Something small and black.
Gun, Keller’s mind registered. If he slowed down, DeWayne would probably still shoot him. He put his head down and charged. He hit DeWayne around the midsection, running full speed like a linebacker. He knocked the air out of DeWayne with a huge grunt. The gun went flying. It landed a few feet away at the edge of the parking area, where gravel and grass were separated by a thin wooden border. The two men collapsed to the gravel of the parking lot, Keller on top of DeWayne. DeWayne made the mistake of trying to turn and crawl towards the gun. Keller took the opportunity to straddle Dewayne’s back. He grabbed a handful of the smaller man’s long hair. He yanked DeWayne’s head back then viciously slammed his face into the gravel. DeWayne screamed. Keller did it again. He remembered the sight of DeWayne by the side of the road, his grin in the flashing lights of the patrol car...“Son of a bitch,” Keller grunted. There was a red haze over his vision. “Kick me in the fucking head...” he pulled DeWayne’s head back for another blow.
Something slammed into him and knocked him off DeWayne’s back. He found himself on his back, face to face with a skinny blonde girl he had never seen before. She was screaming, her face contorted in incoherent rage. He raised a hand to ward her off. She bit it savagely, worrying it with her teeth like a dog, her screams muffled by the blood that welled out of Keller’s torn flesh. Keller screamed along with her. He slugged her on the side of the head as hard as he could. She only bit harder. Her eyes were wide and staring, her nostrils flared. She looked insane. Keller could feel a hard object under his back. The gun, he thought. Using all his strength he rolled over and got her beneath him. He reached down with his free left hand, felt it close around the solid cold hardness of DeWayne’s gun. He didn’t even know if it was cocked or a round chambered, and it wasn’t his shooting hand. He settled for clouting the girl as hard as he could in the temple with the butt of the pistol. Her eyes went foggy. She released her bite enough for him to rip his hand from her mouth. He staggered to his feet. DeWayne was climbing