The persuasive power of Billy’s scenario surprises me. He’s no scholar, but he’s got a firm grasp of hard realities.
He squints at his watch in the shadows. “If I’m not back by the time Buckner gets here, tell him to give me five minutes and then gas the tunnel with CS. Got that?”
“CS.”
“Right. Then come in blasting.”
“Jesus, Billy.”
“And if you hear anybody coming out of that trapdoor that ain’t yelling ‘Billy Jackson,’ you blow ’em to hell and gone.”
“I will.”
“Semper fi, buddy.”
CHAPTER 40
There is no more threatening sound than silence. It is the symphony of the snake that waits for its prey to step within striking range, of the tiger that stalks the deer. It begins as mere absence of sound, but unrelieved, it can build steadily into a roar that blurs perception to the point of sense blindness. I know that blindness now, sitting with both hands gripping the butt of the Magnum as though it could transport Drewe and me to another dimension, far from this dangerous place.
I count the seconds as rivulets of sweat across my face, as breaths entering and leaving the lungs of my sleeping wife. How long will it take Buckner and his men to get here? Even if they were at the north end of the county, it shouldn’t take more than twenty-five minutes. How many have passed? Five? Ten? Or two?
Two explosions close together smash the silence, rattling the foundation of the house. I jump to my feet, trigger finger quivering, heartbeat loosed from its rhythm.
“Harper?”
I whirl, bringing the gun around with me. Drewe is up on one elbow, her eyes barely open.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re in our bedroom. Lie down. We may be in trouble. We-”
A third explosion shudders through the floorboards.
Drewe’s eyes snap open. “What-?”
An agonized wail like a cat in heat rolls out of the kitchen.
“What was that?” she asks, her voice ragged.
“Two deputies went down into the bomb shelter. Brahma may be down there.”
Her fingers grip my wrist like channel-lock pliers.
“Do you still have that pistol you used to use when I was out of town?” I ask.
She nods. “In my dresser drawer.”
“Which one?” I ask, pulling open the top one.
“That’s it. God, I feel sick. Am I drunk?”
Drewe’s pistol is a tiny Charter Arms.25 automatic Bob gave her when she went to medical school in New Orleans. An oddly inefficient weapon coming from a man like Bob, but I suppose he wanted her to be able to conceal it easily.
“White bird? What…?”
“He’s calling you,” says Drewe. “He’s saying
“Billy Jackson. Jimmy somebody.”
“The sheriff’s on his way,” I tell her, my tone strangely defensive.
She nods quickly. “You can’t go down there.”
This time the wail drags out much longer than before.
“I told him not to go down there. Damn!”
As Drewe stares at me, willing me to deafness, I realize I’m in a position I’ve seen a hundred times in movies. Seen, and then screamed silently at the hero not to go into the woods or up the attic stairs or wherever any half-intelligent person would know the monster or murderer was waiting. But sitting here now, in the awful silence following those screams, one fact is inescapable: I brought those men here. If I don’t help them, I will carry their lives on my conscience forever. And I’m already carrying too much.
“Harper, you can’t do anything for them.”
“I know,” I say softly. My right hand is clenched around the butt of the Magnum with painful force. The sheriff will be here before long. But Billy and his partner could be dead by then, and Brahma vanished into the summer night. Another prolonged shriek of pain reaches the bedroom, fainter this time.
“I’ve got to go.”
“What?” Drewe asks. “No, you don’t! Why do you have to go?”
“I just do.”
Drewe takes the huge pistol with a kind of narcotized equanimity. I drop the extra shells on the bed. “I want you to get down behind the bed and aim the pistol at the door.”
She rolls over without a word and kneels behind the bed.
“If anyone comes through but me, you start shooting and don’t stop until the gun is empty. You understand?”
She nods soberly. She knows I mean to go, and though she doesn’t want me to, she won’t waste time trying to talk me out of it. The barrel of the.357 comes level with the bed, then rises until its line of fire intersects my chest.
“I’m okay,” she says. “Go.”
Two words echo in my head as I stare through the open pantry at the black hole of the bomb shelter’s open trapdoor.
The lights in the tunnel should be on, but they’re not. Too late I realize I should have switched off the kitchen lights before opening the trapdoor. I creep close enough to peer over the edge. A pool of light on the concrete floor six feet below tells me there’s a dim column shining down from the kitchen. I want to call out to Billy, but that would be idiocy. Instead, I snatch a flashlight from the top pantry shelf and cut the kitchen lights. That’s almost as obvious as yelling, but climbing down a ladder through a column of light would be suicide.
To get to the floor of the tunnel, I must descend six ladder steps with my left side facing the open tunnel. That’s the normal method, anyhow. Not tonight. Like a kid edging toward the lip of a high roof, I slide my legs through the dark, toward the place where I know the hole is. A tin can of something falls over the edge, caroms off the ladder, and thuds on the cement below.
I stop, waiting.
When the next howl of pain reverberates up the tunnel, I drop down the hole like a sack, my legs crumpling against the cool concrete, the flashlight buckling under my weight.
Forcing myself to breathe quietly, I lie prone on the tunnel floor and stare into the blackness. The.25 feels like a toy in my hand. It might stop a surprised mugger or rapist, but a psychotic killer could take five bullets from this
