the rest of you.”
The image made me think of my nightmare. I kept looking for the gun and listening for Sherm’s return while John continued.
“There was a light outside in the hall, and voices too. I tried to go to the light, but the voices stopped me before I could reach it. I couldn’t see anybody, but I felt them all around me.”
It seemed that God had decided to show me more proof after all. In fact, it looked like He was going to shove the proof up my ass.
Ask and you shall receive . . .
“Who? Who’d you feel?”
“The voices. They told me that I wasn’t allowed to go into the light and that I had to come with them instead. I was scared, Tommy. I was so fucking scared. And then you guys disappeared. You and all these other people. I was alone in the vault with just the voices. They kept telling me to go with them.”
“He wasn’t going to see Jesus,” Benjy murmured. “He was going to see the others. The monster people. The ones inside Mr. Sherm’s head.”
“I don’t know about it being Jesus,” John said, “but it sure was something.”
I was starting to panic. Benjy’s hands were still loose, the tape and the gun were missing, my best friend who couldn’t add two plus two on a good day was sounding like some New Age prophet, and according to our six- year-old healer, Sherm had monsters living inside his head.
“The light vanished,” John continued, “like somebody had turned it off. I still couldn’t see them, but I could feel their breath on me. It stank, man— like the jiffy johns at the ballpark. They were shouting at me, calling me names and cursing me out. Then they started pushing me. I tried shoving them back, but there was nothing there. They moved quickly. One of them bit me, and I screamed. Its teeth, man— you know how it feels when you get a tattoo? That pinching feeling?
That’s what their teeth felt like, except sharper. I kept trying to hit the fuckers, but it was like punching air.”
I turned in a circle, looking for the gun. Dugan eyed me suspiciously.
“Then, all of a sudden, I felt something warm on my chest. It was another pair of hands— but they didn’t belong to those things in the darkness. The light came back— just a pinprick, but man was I glad to see it. It started getting brighter and brighter, and there was somebody standing inside it. I know it sounds crazy, but there was. A man, but I couldn’t make out much else. Then he touched me and I felt better. Just like that. The next thing I remember, I woke up, and that kid was taking his hands off my stomach.”
“That’s really something, man.”
“You know what else, Tommy?”
Sherm would be back any second. The last thing I wanted to hear any more about at that moment was John’s confirmation of life after death— especially given my current situation.
“John— listen, dog, did you see my gun? I left it lying right here next to you. I’ve got this .38 but we need to find the .357 before Sherm does. He’ll go fucking nuclear if he finds out I lost it.”
“Nope. When I woke up, the kid told me to close my eyes for a few minutes and rest. Then he had me open them again. That was when you walked in. I didn’t see a gun.”
“How about the rest of you? Anybody see my .357? And the duct tape?”
Benjy looked like he was ready to cry, and Sheila wouldn’t meet my stare. Neither would Sharon, Kim, or Oscar. Roy found something interesting to look at on the floor and Martha continued to pray. Only Dugan looked at me, and the sneer on his face disturbed me.
“Yo, Tommy! Come out here a minute.”
It was Sherm, and it sounded like he was right outside the door. I froze, wondering how much he’d overheard. I motioned to Benjy to stick his arms behind his back.
“What’s up, man?” I called.
“Check this shit out. The cops have got a— well shit! Never mind. The fucking thing is gone now.”
Footsteps, then he entered the vault.
Quickly, Benjy folded his arms behind him. If Sherm noticed, he gave no sign. Instead, he took a gulp from the soda can he’d brought me, set it on a shelf, and proceeded to polish his pistol on his shirt. He leaned against the heavy steel door with one leg cocked behind him, and grinned.
“Hey, look who’s up and about. Damn, I’m surprised to see you awake. Must hurt like hell. How you feeling, Carpet Dick?”
John tried to smile. “I’m okay, Sherm. How are you?”
“Ready to party. Ready to get it on. Ain’t that right, Tommy?”
“Whatever you say, Sherm.”
His laughter sounded like a barking dog.
“Whatever I say? Well shit, that leaves us with all kinds of possibilities, don’t it? Hear that, Kim baby? Whatever I say.”
Kim didn’t reply. She glanced anxiously at Dugan, and that bad feeling in my stomach came back again.
“Some of us need to use the restroom,” Roy spoke up, “and unless you want it getting messy in here, you’ll have to come up with a place for us to do that.”
“Just sit tight,” Sherm said. “Nobody is leaving this room right now. I just caught the cops trying to send a little robot through the front door— one of those NASA-looking motherfuckers with the spy scope and shit. That’s what I wanted you to come look at, Tommy. It scurried back out before I could smash the fucker. Rolled right overtop of Kelvin.”
“They probably just want to make sure we’re gonna keep our end of the bargain,” I said.
“What bargain?” Roy asked.
I looked directly at Sherm when I answered him.
“Sherm says he’s gonna let you guys go in fifteen minutes. Right, Sherm?”
“Yeah, but the fucking robot still pisses me off. I told them not to do any shit like that. Wonder what they saw on the spy cam? What do you say, Kim? Maybe we should give them a live sex show to watch!”
Kim opened her mouth, started to reply, and seemed to think better of it. She glanced at Dugan, then quickly turned away.
“Come on, now,” Sherm scolded her, “you better be nice to me. I’m about to set you all free. I promise that after the next fifteen minutes, none of you will have to worry about this shit anymore. Hell, I guarantee it.”
I realized then, with a sinking feeling of finality, that there was no way Sherm was going to let them walk out of there.
I ran through the rest of it in my head. Benjy had told John to shut his eyes. Benjy had acted afraid of me when I came back in, as if he thought I might be mad at him. Dugan’s whole Stockholm Syndrome attitude had changed. The duct tape was missing and so was my handgun. The gun was missing.
The gun . . .
“Let’s start with you, Kim. And no sense in fighting me.”
Sherm crossed the floor, reached down, and stroked Kim’s long blond hair with his dirty fingers. She closed her eyes and shuddered in revulsion. At the same time, Dugan brought his arms out from behind his back. The duct tape around his wrists was gone, his hands were free, and my .357 was in them.
“Don’t you fucking move, you white trash piece of shit!” he spat. I yanked the .38 from beneath my shirt and pointed it at Dugan. Sherm whirled, raising his own gun. He clutched Kim’s hair in his other hand, yanking it hard. Her head jerked upward and she moaned.
“Drop the gun,” Dugan ordered, “and let her go, or so help me God I’ll shoot you where you stand, you son of a bitch. I mean it!”
“You might,” Sherm answered calmly, “but I goddamned guarantee you that I’ll shoot back. And if I’ve got time left before I die, I’ll fucking shoot Sharon too.”
As if to make his point, he aimed the gun in Sharon’s direction, still keeping his eyes on Dugan and Kim’s hair firmly clenched in his fist.
I inched closer to them. John was breathing heavily next to me.
“Drop it, Dugan,” I shouted. “Come on, man. It’s two against one. There’s no way this is gonna work, and you know it.”
