stopped. Suffer, she thought. 'Oh, yeah,' she said. 'I remember.' She pulled the hammer back, to blow his grin to pieces.
'Don't do it!' Laura said. She stood in the shelter of Mary's van, her gun trained on the big woman. 'Put it down!'
Mary smiled, her eyes dark with hatred. She turned the Colt's barrel on the baby's head. 'You put it down,' she said. 'At your feet. Right now.'
And behind the building, the Wentzel brother who'd been shot in the chest was sitting up, his mouth gasping. The pitbulls were going crazy, smelling carnage. He held something in a bloody hand. It was a key ring he'd taken from his pocket, and a small key was ready to be used. 'Good boys,' he managed to say. 'Somebody did your daddy real good.' He pushed the key into the dogpen's lock. 'Gonna chew up their asses, ain't you, boys?' The lock clicked open. He pulled against the dogpen's door. It swung open. 'CHEW 'EM UP!' he commanded, and the pitbulls snarled and shivered with excitement as they boiled out of the cage. The brown one raced on, but the mottled dog paused to lick his master's chest for a few seconds before he, too, went hunting for meat.
'Down,' Mary repeated. 'Do it.'
Laura didn't. 'You won't hurt him. What would Jack say?'
'You won't shoot me. You might hit the baby.' In five seconds, Mary decided, she would lunge to her knees – a movement that would take Laura by surprise – and fire the remaining bullets. She counted: one… two… three…
She heard a savage snarling, and she saw Laura's face contort with horror.
Something hit Mary's right side like a miniature freight train, its power knocking Drummer loose from her grip. As Mary fell, so did the baby's bassinet. It hit the ground alongside her and Drummer spilled out, his face red and his mouth open in a silent, indignant yell.
Something took hold of Mary's right forearm. It tightened like an iron vise, and Mary screamed with pain as her fingers spasmed open and the Colt dropped. Then she saw the brown pitbull's jaws clenched to her arm, its eyes staring into hers with murderous intent, and the beast suddenly shook its head back and forth with a violence that almost snapped her arm at the elbow. Mary clawed at the dog's eyes, its teeth ripping down through her brown sweater into the flesh and pain streaking up her shoulder.
Laura got her legs thawed and ran for her baby. Mary screamed in agony as the dog tore at her arm, her other hand trying to reach the Colt. And then Laura saw the gray and white pitbull race out from beside the building. It made a course change that froze Laura's heart.
It was going after David.
She dared not shoot, terrified of hitting the child. The pitbull was almost upon him, its jaws opening to ravage the precious flesh, and Laura heard herself shout 'NO!' in a voice so powerful it made the animal's head tick toward her, its eyes aflame with bloodfever.
She took two more running strides and kicked the dog in the ribs as hard as she could, staggering it away from David. The pitbull whirled in a mad circle, snapping at the air, and then it went for the baby again, darting in so fast Laura had no time to aim a second kick. Its teeth snapped shut, snagging the baby's white blanket which was splotched with Edward Fordyce's dried blood. And then the pitbull shivered lustily and began to drag David through the sawdust on his back, the blanket tangled around his body.
Mary dug her fingers into the brown pitbull's eyes. The beast made a half groan, half howl and shook its head violently, its teeth tearing down through her flesh. It pulled against her arm with a terrible force, the shoulder muscles shrieking. The arm was about to be broken. Mary reached for her Colt, but her fingers lost it as the pitbull jerked her again and fresh agony filled her up. Then she went mad herself, punching at the animal's skull as it tried to drag her. The pitbull released her, backed off, and sprang again, its white fangs bared. Its jaws clamped on her right thigh, the teeth working through her corduroy jeans into the meat of her leg with crushing pressure.
Laura threw herself at the dog that was dragging David. She grabbed around its muscular throat and hung on. The pitbull let go of David's blanket and went for her face, its body quivering with power and its teeth snapping at her cheek with the sound of a bear trap springing. She shielded her face with her left hand. The jaws found it, and clenched shut.
She heard a sound like sticks cracking. A terrifying bolt of electric agony speared up through her wrist and forearm. Broke my hand! she realized as she kept fighting to pull the dog away from her baby. Bastard broke my hand! The pitbull savagely twisted her hand, more pain ripping through her fingers and wrist. She could feel the teeth grinding on the bones. She thought she screamed, but she wasn't sure. Her brain felt like a fever blister about to burst. She pressed the automatic's barrel against the pitbull's side and squeezed the trigger twice.
The dog shuddered with the shots, but it did not let go. And now it was trying to drag her, blood streaming from its side and foaming from its mouth. Its claws dug into the sawdust. Laura's wrist was about to snap. She fired again, into the side of the pitbull's blocky head, and the dog's lower jaw exploded in a spray of bone chips and blood.
Mary was fighting her own battle ten feet away. She slammed her knee into the brown pitbull's skull with everything she had behind it. Then a second and third time, as the dog's teeth kept tearing her thigh open. She got a finger hooked into one of the eyes and yanked it out like a white grape, and at last the pitbull grunted and released her thigh. It danced with pain, shaking its one-eyed head back and forth and snapping at the air. Mary crawled for the Colt, tried to latch her fingers around it, but they were spasming out of control, the nerves and muscles of her injured arm rioting. She looked up as the pitbull charged at her again, and she cried out and shielded her face with her arms.
It hit her shoulder with a bone-bruising blow, knocked Mary aside, and fell with a pain-maddened snarl upon Laura.
The dying dog was still hanging on to Laura's left hand. The one-eyed beast fastened its teeth on the overcoat sleeve of her right arm and began to tear at it. She couldn't get her gun angled to shoot it. She kicked and screamed, the one-eyed dog working on her right arm and the other animal still trying to crunch her hand with its ruined jaws.
Mary scrambled to the wailing baby, scooped him up with her left arm, and struggled to her feet. Blood streamed from her gnawed thigh, her jeans leg drenched. The two dogs had Laura between them, the woman trying to wrench loose. Mary saw the Colt on the ground. Her right hand was still convulsing, drops of blood falling from her fingertips. Panic flared within her. She was hurt badly, near passing out. If she fell and the dogs turned on her and Drummer…
She left the gun and hobbled toward the van, ignoring the man she'd shot. As Mary transferred Drummer to her right arm and used her left hand to open the driver's door, Didi came at her with a two-by-four she'd plucked off a lumber pile. Mary saw the blow coming and dodged it, the wood whacking against the van's side. And then Mary stepped in and drove a knee up into Didi's stomach, and Didi cried out and doubled over. Mary brought her left arm down across Didi's back, the blow whooshing the air from Didi's lungs and dropping her to her knees.
Didi groaned, her battle-flag-red hair hanging over her face in defeat. Mary could see how gray it was. Didi looked up at her, eyes watery with pain. It was the face of an old woman, tortured by the things that were.
'Go on,' Didi said. 'Kill me.'
Laura kicked the dying pitbull away from her broken hand, and the animal staggered in dazed circles. The other dog still had hold of her ragged coat sleeve, its fangs starting to reach the flesh. She couldn't get a shot at it, unless…
She dropped the gun and wrenched her arm out of the overcoat, the dog's teeth snapping shut in its wake. Then she picked up the automatic, jammed the barrel right up under the pitbull's throat, and squeezed the trigger.
Mary Terror flinched at the sound of the shot. Blood was running down her leg in hot rivulets. Before her, Didi kneeled with sawdust in her hair, and Didi saw the raw fear in Mary's eyes. Mary's right hand was still spasming, torn muscles twitching in the forearm wound. Drummer was screaming in her ear, the world starting to turn gray. Mary got into the van with Drummer and slammed the door. She backed away from the building's side, intending to crush Didi beneath the wheels, but Didi had shaken the cobwebs loose and crawled to the safety of the lumber stacks. Mary got the van turned around and sped toward the gates, the tires throwing dust.
Five seconds later, Didi heard another car door open and close. She emerged from her hiding place as the BMW's engine started. Earl Van Diver was behind the wheel, his face a grinning, terrible rictus. As Van Diver twisted the wheel with his shattered shoulder, Didi saw his mouth open in a soundless scream. The BMW tore
