Michaud is raising the bat again over Pete when Sam tackles him. The last time Sam sacked a guy was in a pickup game with some of the football team in October. Coach had seen it and shit the bed at the thought of Sam risking an injury, though it was the quarterback who didn’t get up for fifteen minutes. Landing on this guy feels the same as hitting that kid—like falling off a roof.
Michaud is a big guy, built heavy and low to the ground like his Buick station wagon. He reeks of heavy-breathing boozy sweat. But weirdly, crawling away from Sam, the man is crying. Not the way Pete is. Pete sounds as if somebody is trying to smother him. But Michaud wipes tears from his eyes and sobs.
Deanie has come to a sliding stop within a few yards.
“Get back in the truck!” Sam shouts at her.
Rick Woods throws his arms around Deanie from behind and drags her back another few yards.
As Sam rolls into a crouch, the man sits up. He’s still clutching his bat. Warily, Sam looks for a way to take it away from him. Michaud brandishes it at him with a laugh. Sam shows his palms to signal his pacific intentions. Michaud wipes his nose with the sleeve of his plaid wool jacket.
Sam catches a glimpse of Todd Gramolini sprinting back into the school—to a phone, Sam hopes. Other players have ventured from vehicles or the school but keep a cautious distance.
“Oh jee-zus, jeez,” Pete whimpers.
Michaud hauls himself to his feet against the Blazer. “I’m done with this fuck,” he says.
Sam shakes his head. “You better just sit down somewhere and wait for the cops, man.”
The heavy man looks contemptuously down on Sam. “You’re all the same, you fucks. The ones didn’t take a turn watched it or joked about it. None a you stopped it, didja? Just let him do it, let’m all do it. I oughta take this slugger to every single one of ya. Right where you horny bastards live.”
He sways as if he is on the verge of fainting. Rising hastily, Sam reaches out to support Michaud but the man shakes off his hand.
“She ain’t even fourteen yet,” Michaud says.
Writhing on the ground, Pete clutches at Sam’s ankle and blubbers. When Sam crouches again to reassure him that help is on the way, Michaud shoves Sam from behind. Pete screams as Sam is driven forward onto him. Sam hears what’s left of Pete’s knee grate and abruptly Pete’s shriek stops as he faints dead away while Sam struggles to get off him. Michaud lopes away toward his wagon.
On his knees, Sam stares after him. Deanie shakes off Rick. Sam rises to clutch her as she hurtles into him. A second later, she slithers from Sam’s grasp into a scooch next to Pete. One hand wipes snow and tears from Pete’s face and she moans in her throat.
Michaud’s wagon spins slush from its wheels and waddles across the lot. As the first police siren pulses from the west, from Greenspark village, the wagon fishtails out onto the main road and spins east.
Rick kneels opposite Deanie. “Oh Peteybird,” he mutters. “Petey, you are fucked.”
“Where’s he going?” Sam asks. “The Michauds live in town.”
“Chapins’ is east of here,” Deanie suggests. “Maybe he knows about J.C. too.”
Rick shakes his head. “What a shitstorm.”
With the assailant gone, people leave the safety of their vehicles and the school to try to help or just to rubberneck. Sam sends Bither to promote a blanket. Pete is already in shock and they should keep him from getting any colder before the ambulance arrives.
He grabs Deanie’s hand and yanks her toward the truck.
“Where you goin’, Sambo?” Rick calls.
“Chapins’.”
“What the hell do you think you’re gonna do?”
Sam gives him no answer.
As they spin out onto 302, a rolling burble of colored lights due west signals the imminent arrival of a town cruiser. Deanie flops in her seat like a ragdoll.
“Belt up,” Sam orders again. “Do it! For once! Please!”
“Rick’s right! What are you gonna do?” she demands. “You’re not a frigging cop. Why don’t you just let Lexie’s old man pound J.C. into the ground? Nobody deserves it more.”
In his peripheral vision, Sam catches Deanie’s fingers going directly to her face.
“I hope he does kill J.C.,” she blurts. She hides her face with her hands. From behind her trembling fingers, the rest spills out in breathless gasps. “I hope the least he does is put that bat… in J.C.’s mouth. I hope he ruins the fucker’s face the… way J.C.… helped ruin mine.”
The lights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler blind Sam and he realizes he has crossed the center line. The truck’s airhorn blasts like a banshee. As he swings the truck back across the line, the big rig tears by. It feels like it’s sucking his truck right back into it. The whole vehicle vibrates violently before they escape the eighteen-wheeler’s slipstream.
In the lee of the big rig, Sam slows the truck. He thinks he might have to throw up. Deanie undoes her seatbelt and crawls on hands and knees across the cab to put her head on his thigh. He strokes her jawline and feels the shudder go through her. He wonders if Michaud has got a spare slugger, or if the berserker might lend him the one he used on Pete, let him take a few strokes on Chapin.
Michaud has parked his wagon on the Chapins’ snow-covered lawn. As Sam curbs the truck, the man plants himself next to J.C.’s car in the driveway and brings up the bat. Deanie clutches Sam’s jacket and he helps her sit up. The bat comes down on the yellow Sunbird’s windshield and the glass crackles and webs. Taking a deep breath, Michaud lifts the ash again and
