The Regulators - Stephen King [107]
'You should have stopped him!' Dave Reed screamed, hurling himself at Johnny. 'You should have stopped him, why didn't you? Why didn't you stop him?'
Steve tried to grab the kid on his way by, but the pain in his shoulders was excruciating. He could only watch helplessly as Dave Reed grabbed Johnny and bore him to the ground. They rolled over twice, from one side of the path to the other. Johnny wound up on top, at least for a moment. 'David, listen to me — '
'No! No! You should have stopped him! You should have stopped him!'
The kid slapped Johnny first with his right hand, then his left. He was sobbing, tears streaming down his pale cheeks. Steve tried again to help and succeeded only in distracting Johnny, who had been trying to pin the boy's arms with his knees. Dave rocked up hard on one hip, throwing Johnny off the path to the left. Johnny put out a hand to break his fall and got a palmful of cactus spines instead. He roared in pain and surprise.
Steve got hold of Dave Reed's shoulder with his right hand — that arm was at least responding a little — but the boy shook him off easily, not even looking around, and then sprang on to Johnny Marinville's broad back, got his hands around his throat, and began to choke him. And, all around them in the swiftly darkening day, the coyotes howled — perfect round howls, the kind Steve had never heard when he was growing up, although he had been born and raised in Texas. Howls like these you only heard in the movies.
5
Both men had wanted to come with her, but Cynthia wouldn't have it — one was old, the other drunk. The gate at the bottom of the lawn was still open. A moment after going through it, she was fighting her way through the underbrush toward the path. She saw several cacti before she got there (there were more of them now, and they were driving out the normal greenbelt vegetation), but didn't register them. She could hear the sounds of a struggle up ahead: harsh, strained breathing, a cry of pain, the thud of a landed blow. And coyotes. She didn't see them, but they sounded as if they were everywhere.
As she reached the path, a trim little blonde in jeans blew past her without so much as a glance. Cynthia knew who she was — Cammie Reed, the twins' mother. Following her and panting heavily was Brad Josephson. Rivulets of sweat were running down his cheeks; the late light made him look as if he were crying tears of blood.
Sun's going down, Cynthia thought as she turned on to the path and ran after the others. If we don't get out of here soon, we're apt to get lost. And wouldn't that be fun.
Then there was a scream from just ahead of her. No, not a scream but a shriek. Horror and grief mingled. The Reed woman. Cynthia heard Brad say, 'Oh no, oh fuck,' just as she reached him.
For a moment Josephson's broad back obscured what was going on, and then he bent beside Cammie and Cynthia saw two bodies lying sprawled on either side of the path. In the thickening shadows she couldn't tell who they were — only that they had been male, and looked as if they had died unpleasantly — but she could see Steve standing to one side of the melee at the left of the path, and the sight of him made her feel glad. Almost at his feet was the carcass of a horribly misshapen animal with half its head blown away.
Cammie Reed was on her knees beside one of the corpses, not touching it but holding her shaking hands out over it, palms up, wailing. On her face was an expression of murderous agony. Cynthia saw the Eddie Bauer shorts and understood it was one of her sons.
But they had such perfect teeth, Cynthia thought stupidly. Must have cost her and her husband a fortune.
Brad worked at getting the other twin (Dave, Cynthia thought his name was, or maybe it was Doug) off Johnny Marinville. The big black man had gotten his arms under the teenager's arms, and had locked his large hands together behind Dave's neck, giving him full-nelson leverage. Still, the Reed boy did not come easily.
'Let me go!'