Beware

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

They traveled parallel to the road, well away from it so they wouldn’t be spotted if a car should pass. They only saw the road, themselves, when they sometimes reached higher ground.Scott carried both attaché cases. Dukane, pistol in hand, walked behind Hoffman. Lacey stayed close to Scott, her eyes on the rough ground.A long time had passed since Lacey’s last hike in the desert. She remembered that time clearly. She was with Brian. They left his car by the road, and walked for nearly an hour in the fresh warmth of early morning. He took photos with his Polaroid: of cacti, of wildflowers, of lizards, of Lacey. They drank wine and ate cheese. The heat and alcohol made her tipsy. When she got tipsy, she got horny. They stripped and took pictures of each other, and that turned her on even more, and finally they spread their clothes on the burning ground and made love.She looked at Scott, walking slightly ahead and to her right. His shirt clung to his back with sweat. His wallet made a bulge over his left buttock. She remembered the feel of him during those seconds when they embraced in the hotel room. If only they hadn’t been interrupted…Three years, now, since she’d taken a man in her arms, into her body.Except for Hoffman.He doesn’t count.She felt his hardness plundering her, and her excitement turned into an icy knot of revulsion. She watched him walking beside Dukane, the back of his head silver in the moonlight, his hands cuffed behind him. He looked undamaged. Why hadn’t the bullets killed him, damn it? She should’ve grabbed Scott’s gun, when they had him down, and pumped a few rounds into his head.Maybe she still could.But that would end Scott’s dream of a best seller.Besides, she didn’t know if she could kill another person—even Hoffman. The look on that man’s face when her bullet hit him…A dead saguaro lay at her feet like a rotting corpse. She stepped over it.“Ah ha!” Dukane said, and pointed.On a distant rise of land stood a small house. Its windows were dark, its stone walls pale. A pickup truck stood in front of it.“The gods are smiling on us,” Scott said.Lacey guessed the house was half a mile away, and set far back from the road—far enough, she hoped, so that it hadn’t been noticed by those in the other car. Of course, they must’ve seen its entry drive. Maybe they’d already checked the place and moved on.The house vanished as she made her way down the side of a gully.Hoffman grunted. He stumbled, fell headlong, and tumbled to the bottom. “Shit!” he snapped, rolling onto his back. “Fuckin’ handcuffs!”Dukane pulled him to his feet.“Get these things off me,’fore I kill myself.”“That’s hardly likely.”“Damn it, take’em off! What do you think I’ll do, run for it? Where’ll I go? I’m with you guys, now. You’re my only chance. I wouldn’t break for it if I could, not with The Group on our fuckin’ tails. I’m yours. Get me someplace safe. Man, those bastards are gonna roast me. Just let me have my hands so I don’t bust my damn neck. That asking too much? I ain’t gonna be any good to you guys with a busted neck.”Dukane took a key from his pocket.“Don’t,” Lacey warned.“We’ll cuff him in front.”“No! For Christsake, he’ll get loose!”“It’s risky,” Scott said. “He’s stronger than you’d think.”“Okay. I’ll lay down. How’s that?” Hoffman asked, dropping to his knees. “Can’t run if I’m lying down, right?” He fell forward, landing on his side, and rolled to his belly. “Just put the cuffs in front. That’ll be okay. You oughta try walking in this fuckin’ desert with your hands behind your back, see how you like it.”Dukane crouched over him.“Wait!” Lacey said. “Maybe he tripped on purpose. Just so he’d have an excuse for you to take off the cuffs.”“Shut the fuck up,” Hoffman snapped.“He didn’t have much trouble before. Now, when we’re in easy shot of a pickup truck, he suddenly can’t stay on his feet.”“Stupid cunt.”“Lacey’s right,” Scott said.“Yeah. Okay, up.”“Up yours. I’m not taking one more step till you change the cuffs. You want to drag me? Go ahead. Have fun.”“What happened to your spirit of cooperation?” Dukane asked.“You can fuckin’ carry me.”“Is that your last word on the subject?”“Damn right.”“Sorry to hear that.” Dukane stepped close to Hoffman’s head.“Are we gonna carry him?” Scott asked.“I think he’ll decide to walk.”“Think again, asshole.”Dukane stomped on his head, smashing his face into the gravel floor of the gully. Lacey cringed, shocked by the sudden violence. As she turned away, Scott took her into his arms. She pressed her face to his chest. Behind her, Hoffman’s yell of pain became hysterical gasping.“You…you…oh you bastard! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!”“You’ll walk with us,” Dukane said, his voice quiet and calm.“I’ll tear out your heart, you motherfuckin’…”Lacey heard a thud, a grunt.“You…!”“Time to go,” Dukane said. “You won’t like it, if I lose my patience.”“It’s all right,” Scott whispered. He eased Lacey away, and she saw Dukane jerking the man to his feet.“My f a c e !”“Not much loss, Hoffman. Nobody can see it, anyway.”Hoffman turned to Lacey. She stared at his moonlit face, its eyeless sockets, its snarling mouth, gaps in its forehead and left cheek where the makeup or skin had been scraped off, a few patches of tinted flesh hanging like torn cloth. “Your fault,” he told her. “I’ll get you for this.”“You’ll get no one,” Dukane said, and shoved him toward the slope.They climbed out of the gully. The house seemed no closer than before. Lacey wondered if its occupants had heard Hoffman’s outcries. Noise carries far in the desert, just as it does over water. But the windows were still dark. Perhaps the walls of the gully had contained most of the sound. Or maybe those in the house were heavy sleepers.Lacey hoped the house was deserted. That seemed unlikely, though, with a pickup parked in front.Along the way, Hoffman fell several more times as if to prove his point. Each time, he cursed the handcuffs that stopped him from catching himself. But he didn’t stay long on the ground. He struggled quickly to his feet, looking around at Dukane.Finally, they made their way up the low hill to the house. They took a path through the cactus garden at its side.“Give me your shirt, Scott.”Without hesitation, Scott took off his shirt and handed it over. Dukane draped it over Hoffman’s head and used his own belt to cinch it around the neck.“Want me to go around back?” Scott asked.Dukane shook his head. “Let’s play it straight.” Holstering his pistol, he took Hoffman’s elbow and led the way to the front door. He pressed the doorbell. From inside the house came a quiet ring of chimes.They waited.He rang again.A light came on above the door.“State your business,” called a voice from inside—the voice of a young woman.“Our car broke down,” Dukane said. “We’d like to use your phone.”“I don’t have one. Go on, get out of here.”“We’re worn out,” Lacey said. “At least let us have some water. We’ve been walking a long time.”“Use the tap by the garden,” she called. “You’re not getting in here. I saw you coming. You’ve got guns.”“We’re FBI, ma’am,” Dukane told her.“Sure. And I’m John Edgar Hoover.”“She hasn’t got a phone anyway,” Lacey whispered.“Okay, Scott. Get over there and hotwire the pickup.”With a nod, Scott turned away.“All right, lady,” Dukane said. “We’ll leave.”“That’s just fine.”Lacey turned to follow Scott, and grabbed his arm as a woman with a double-barreled shotgun lurched upright in the pickup’s bed.“No you don’t!” yelled the woman.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The front door swung open. A woman stepped out with a revolver. She was slim, no older than twenty, with black hair cropped short. Though she must have had plenty of time to dress, she wore only a short pink nightgown. Apparently, thought Lacey, she’d been determined to keep them out.“Put down your guns,” she said.Dukane nodded to Scott. They set a total of four pistols on the ground: two of their own, plus the two they’d taken from Trankus and his partner.“They were planning to make off with the truck,” said the other woman, climbing down. “Otherwise, I would’ve let them go.” She was larger than the one in the doorway, with broad hips, and breasts that swung loosely inside her T-shirt.“What’ll we do?” asked the smaller one.“Let’s get them inside and call the police.”“You do have a phone,” Dukane said.“Of course.”“Okay, inside.”The small one backed into the house, waving her revolver. The one with the shotgun took up the rear. When they were all inside, she shut the door.“Okay, Nancy, call the cops.”“Don’t do that,” Dukane said. “Here, look at my credentials.” He handed his wallet to the girl with the pistol.She slipped it open and stared. “Says he’s FBI, Jan.”“Anybody can get a fake ID.”“We were escorting our prisoner to Tucson when our car broke down.”“What’s he doing with a shirt on his head?” Jan asked.“He’s deformed,” Dukane explained. “We put the shirt over him to spare you the sight.”“Bullshit,” Jan said.“It’s true,” Lacey told her.“They covered my head’cause they kidnapped me and don’t want you seeing who they’ve got. They snatched me this morning. I’m Watson Jones, vice president for Wells Fargo…”“Can it, Hoffman.”“Let him talk,” said Jan.“They’re holding me for two million bucks. The three of’em, they’re in it together. Look, get these cuffs off me, huh? Dukane, he’s got a key.”“Heard about a kidnapping?” Jan asked Nancy.“No.”“They ain’t released it to the news.”With relief, Lacey saw a wry smile on Jan’s face.“For the vice president of a bank, buster, you ain’t got such good grammar.”“He’s a rapist and murderer,” Dukane said.“That’s a con! Get his fuckin’ key before he grabs your guns.”“Nobody’s going to grab your guns,” Dukane said. “This is your house. Fine with us if you want to hold the artillery. As I said before, we just want the use of your telephone. I need to call headquarters so they can pick us up.”“We’d better call the cops. Nancy?”“You don’t want to do that,” Dukane said.“Yes, I think we do.”Nancy walked backward across the red ceramic tile of the living room, and lowered herself onto a couch. She reached out for a telephone on the lamp table.“Where’d she go?” Hoffman blurted. “What’s she doing? Don’t let her call!”“If you make that call,” Dukane said, “it’s quite possible we’ll all be dead by morning.”Nancy looked at Jan.“Explain yourself,” Jan said.“Our friend here belongs to a certain organization—a cult that wants him back. They have connections inside the Tucson police.”“Suppose we call the Highway Patrol?”“They may or may not be infiltrated. I don’t know about that. But I do know this: if you phone in, they’ll dispatch a car to this location by radio. Any joker with a Bearcat scanner will know right where to find us.”“We’ll be dead meat,” Hoffman said.“What do you think?” Jan asked her friend.Nancy shook her head, looking confused.“It’s all too damned fishy for me. Go ahead and call the Highway Patrol.”“Don’t,” Dukane warned.Nancy lifted the receiver and dialed for the operator. “Hello? I’d like the number…”“Please,” Lacey said, starting forward. “Put it down.”Jan swung the shotgun toward her. At that instant, Dukane leapt. He caught Jan around the hips, throwing her backward. The shotgun fired.As its roar stunned Lacey’s ears, she saw the base of the phone jump from the table, exploding, crashing into the lamp behind it. Phone and lamp flew against the blasted wall. Dukane and Jan hit the floor.Scott rushed Nancy. The girl, frozen by the blast that barely missed her, offered no resistance. She sat on the couch, phone receiver still in her right hand, gazing at the splintered table surface as Scott freed the revolver from her left hand.“What happened?” Hoffman yelled. “Somebody take this fuckin’ shirt off my head! Who got shot?”Dukane, on top of Jan, shoved the shotgun across the floor. She stopped struggling. As he pinned her arms, they both gazed toward Nancy.“She’s okay,” Dukane said.“Get off me,” Jan muttered.He climbed off, and went for the shotgun. Jan hurried to the couch. She sat down and put an arm around the girl. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I almost…” She began to cry. The daze left Nancy’s face. Her chin trembled, and she lay her head against Jan’s breast.“Why don’t you all just get out of here,” Jan blurted. “Get the hell out. Take the pickup. Just get out of here.”“Where are the keys?” Dukane asked, his voice gentle.“My purse. In the kitchen.”He went for them, and returned a moment later. “I’ll see that the truck’s returned to you,” he said.“Just get out.”“Come on,” he said.They went outside, leaving the two women on the couch. Dukane lowered the tailgate. He and Scott lifted Hoffman onto the truck bed. “I’ll ride in the back with him,” he said, climbing aboard with the shotgun.They closed the tailgate. Scott lifted the two attaché cases over the side panel. He took the pistols off the ground, and gave two of them to Dukane.“You take this,” he said, handing Nancy’s revolver to Lacey.They climbed into the cab.As Scott started the truck, Lacey saw Jan gazing out one of the front windows of the house.“They’ll be all right,” Scott said.“Now that we’re gone.”“Yeah.” He pulled the truck away from the house, with the headlights off, and sped up the long, narrow road. The deep blue of the sky was lighter in the east. Lacey wondered at it, for a moment, then realized the night was nearly over.She leaned back and shut her eyes. She felt weary and sick, but not sleepy. Taking a deep breath, she was nearly overcome by nausea. Her mind whirled with images of Nancy’s shocked face, the face of the man she had shot, the screams as Hoffman chopped through the crowd at the elevators, little Hamlin Alexander leaping into the packed elevator, the knife plunging into Carl’s throat. She snapped open her eyes. “Oh God,” she muttered.“It’ll soon be over.” Scott patted her leg.“All this death…”“I know.”And then she saw a dark car ahead of them on the road, its doors open, men crouched behind the doors with guns.“Down!” Scott yelled, and hit the brakes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Lacey flung herself sideways as the night exploded. Scott dropped in front of her, his back striking her nose, shoving at her breasts. Dazed, she wondered if he’d been hit. But she felt him moving. Then the truck lurched backward. It gained speed. The rear end swerved and she felt the truck bound off the smoothness of the road. It rose. It pounded down. Through the gunfire and roar of the engine, she heard rapid thunks like a dozen hammers pounding metal. The tail of the truck swung back. She felt the smoothness again.Raising her head, she saw the blasted windshield and Scott’s hand gripping the side of the steering wheel. As she looked, a bullet blasted through the top of the wheel. She ducked again.The truck sped wildly, bumped off the other side of the road, swerved back, stayed on the pavement for a while, then lurched off again.The shooting stopped. She felt Scott raise himself slightly, perhaps enough to peer out. Then he moved higher. He sat up. Lacey lifted her head. The road had turned. The other car was out of sight.Scott floored the gas pedal.“You okay?” he asked.“Yeah.” Sitting up, she realized her nose was bleeding. She licked the blood from her upper lip, wiped it with the back of her hand.The truck skidded to a stop. They were in front of the house again. Looking down the road, Lacey saw no sign of the car. She jumped from the cab and followed Scott to the house. He unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she scanned the living room. Deserted.She returned to the truck and grabbed the attaché cases while Scott and Dukane hustled Hoffman to the ground. He fell. As Dukane stood over him, Scott climbed into the pickup. Lacey watched him drive the smoking vehicle along the front of the house and through the cactus garden. At the edge of the slope, he jumped clear. The pickup plunged down. She heard it bang and slam. She expected it to explode, but it didn’t.“Why’d he do that?” she asked Dukane.“The truck’s no good. Too shot up. No point giving the bastards any extra cover.”“At least we don’t have the ladies to contend with,” Scott said as he returned. “They high tailed it. I saw’em out there, running like a couple of jackrabbits.”“They’re best out of it,” Dukane said.He and Dukane grabbed Hoffman and dragged him into the house. Lacey shut the door, locked it.“Get the lights,” Dukane said.Lacey switched off the outside light, then stepped to the near end of the couch and turned off the remaining lamp. Darkness filled the room.“Watch out the window, Lacey. Scott, give me a hand. We’d better secure our friend.”They pulled Hoffman to his feet and led him out of the living room.Moving a rocker away, Lacey knelt at a front window. The road was deserted. In the east, the sky was a pale blue. She took a deep, shaky breath, and touched the skin beneath her nostrils. The bleeding had stopped. She folded her arms on the windowsill, and rested her chin on her hands.She thought of Jan and Nancy running through the desert, and wished she were with them. Running. Leaving all this behind. But she couldn’t leave Scott. She would stick this out with him, see it through to the end.She thought of the old movie, Bonnie and Clyde—the ambush, bullets ripping into Warren Beattie and Faye Dunaway, making their bodies dance and writhe as if in a horrible orgasm.Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. You must go into shock right away. And then it’s over.The glow of the sun reached over the horizon, casting gold across the desert. She lay her forehead down on her folded hands, and wept.“It’s all right,” said a voice behind her. Scott’s voice. His hands slipped under her armpits, and he lifted her. He turned her around to face him. “It’s all right,” he said, more softly. His fingertips brushed tears from her cheeks.“I don’t want us to die.”“ ‘We owe God a death, ’ as Falstaff says.” He kissed her. “But it’s not due yet.”She put her arms around him, and held him tightly. She pressed her face to the warm curve of his neck. He rubbed her back, her shoulders. Then he eased her away and led her past Dukane.“I’ll tuck her in,” he said.Dukane nodded.Scott guided her to a bed of cushions and blankets prepared in a short hallway. The nearby doors were closed.“Where’s Hoffman?” Lacey whispered.“The bathroom. We cuffed him to the base of the sink. He can’t get loose.”“Can we use the bedroom?”“Safer here. No windows.”He lay down beside her, and held her gently.Closing her eyes, Lacey felt his mouth on her open lips. His hand stroked her belly and slowly, so slowly, inched upward. Fingers glided over her breast as if seeking out its shape and texture through the fabric of her shirt. She lifted the shirt, and moaned as he touched her bare skin. His fingertips moved lightly, teasing like feathers, making her squirm with pleasure as they brushed circles around one nipple, then the other.His mouth went away briefly. Then it took a breast, sucking gently, the tongue probing and flicking.This is how it should be, she thought. Gentle and slow and loving, the desire almost painful, wanting him so badly that nothing else matters. For an instant, she thought of Hoffman cuffed inside the bathroom, only a few yards away, but the image was washed away with a thrilled tremor as Scott’s hand slipped under the waistband of her shorts. A finger traced her pan ties’ elastic strip, moving slowly from side to side, lightly scraping her skin, toying with the band.Lacey pushed a trembling hand down the front of his pants. Sliding it inside his shorts, she felt his hot erection. As she curled her fingers around it, she felt Scott’s hand slip into her pan ties. She gasped as he found her opening. While she stroked his thick shaft, his fingers glided against her, slipped into her, probing and pushing. Her own hand explored Scott, wanting his penis inside her. He eased away. Kneeling beside her, he tugged her pants down. She kicked them off, reached out for him, and opened his trousers. She pulled them down, freed his erection, fondled it, held its burning flesh as he climbed onto her, then guided it between her spread legs.It sunk into her, filling her, gently pushing deeper and deeper.“Oh dear God,” she sighed. “Dear Scott.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dukane knelt alone at the window, staring through its open louvers at the area in front of the house. The low, morning sun made his eyes burn. An effect of going too long without sleep. He closed them. The lids shut out the sunlight, felt soothing on the raw tissue.He saw Nancy. She winked at him, and lifted her pink nightgown. He expected bare skin, a thatch of pubic hair, perky breasts with upthrust nipples. But no. Not yet. Under the nightgown were red gym shorts and a tank top. She pulled the top over her head, and there they were, her breasts, firm creamy mounds with nipples erect. She began to dance, whirling, waving the shirt like a flag as her other hand lowered to her gym shorts. But now they were faded blue cutoff jeans. She opened them, continuing to dance, and they slowly slid down her legs. She skipped out of them.She lay on her back, knees up, thighs apart, rubbing herself with both hands, then beckoning him. But as he approached, he saw jagged shards of glass embedded in her skin. They protruded from her breasts, belly, thighs—glistening, clear blades waiting to rip him up. With a grin, she opened her mouth. Her tongue slid out, weighted with a jagged triangle of glass. Reaching between her legs, she spread her flesh. Powdered glass spilled like salt from her vagina.“Fuck me,” she said.“Not till you take the glass out,” he told her.She spat the chunk from her mouth. It shot out like shrapnel, flipping and twisting toward him. He flinched away. His forehead struck the windowsill.He awoke with a gasp.“Christ,” he muttered, angry at himself for dozing off, and shaken by the dream.He scanned the area in front of the house. Still no sign of the car or any people. Getting to his feet, he crossed the room. He knelt on the couch and parted the curtains behind it. Fifty feet away stood a garage of white stone. Nobody at its corners or visible on its roof. But off to the left, a hundred yards away, a figure was lying prone on a rise among balls of cacti. Dukane saw a rifle in his arms. He ducked away, and hurried into the kitchen. From its window, he saw another distant sniper.He filled a glass with water. As he sipped it, he entered the hallway. Scott and Lacey were asleep on the floor, holding each other. He carefully stepped around them, and entered the bedroom. From its window, he spotted another man with a rifle.At least they’re not assaulting the place, he thought. Containing us. Maybe waiting for reinforcements. That would explain why the car hadn’t shown up again. One of them must’ve taken it to alert others.If the girls got away all right, they’d go for the authorities. An army of cops might descend on the place any time.Interesting to see which army arrives first.Setting down his empty glass, he went into the hallway and shook Scott’s foot. The man woke with a start. Lacey moaned, but didn’t awaken. Scott gently untangled himself from her, and followed Dukane into the living room.“I want you to take over the watch. They’ve got snipers stationed on both sides and the rear. Maybe one in front, but I haven’t spotted him.”“All right.”“I don’t think they’ll rush us, but we can’t rule it out.”He left Scott by the front window, and went into the kitchen. He searched a utility closet, a cupboard under the sink, and wasn’t surprised at not finding what he wanted. People don’t usually store combustibles in the house.He returned to the living room.“I’m going out for a second,” he said, unholstering his automatic.Scott frowned.“We’ve gotta get the paint off Hoffman.”“What for?”“Have to make him disappear in case the cops show up. That’s assuming you’re still hot to get his story for yourself.”“I am. But I don’t like the idea of you going outside.”Dukane slapped his shoulder. “Buck up, boyo, I’ll be back.”He led Scott to the window over the couch, and pointed out the rifleman. “I don’t expect you to hit him at this range, but put a few rounds close enough to worry him if he starts tracking me.”With a nod, Scott opened the louvered window.“You have the keys?”Scott fished Jan’s key case out of his pocket. Dukane took it. He went to the front window.Scanning the area in front of the house, he saw no one. He pushed open the door and stepped out. Back against the wall, he searched the barren terrain. Odd if nobody was covering the front. If there were only four, though, and one had to drive for help…Well, the two at the sides could easily pick off anyone trying to break from the front.He stepped off the edge of the stoop. Pressing his back to the wall, he made his way toward the corner. Prickles stung his legs, and he looked down to see cactus spines clinging to his trousers. The girls had apparently planted “jumping cactus” along the wall, a variety that seems to shoot its quills into anyone venturing too close.Nice of them, he thought.At the corner, he blinked sweat from his eyes and crouched down. The spines dug into his calves. Ignoring the pain, he peered around the wall’s edge. He glimpsed the sniper, saw the rifle aimed his way. Two shots blasted at once. As a bullet whined off the wall inches from his face, he sprang up and dashed for the garage. Gunfire erupted from both the house and sniper, a roar that seemed to jolt the air around him as he ran.A bullet tugged his sleeve near the shoulder.Abruptly, there was silence. He threw himself against the side door of the garage, and shoved a key at the lock face.Didn’t fit.He tried another. This one slid in. He turned it, threw open the door, and burst into the stifling heat of the garage.There were no windows.Feeling along the wall, his fingertips found a light switch. He flicked it. A single bulb came on.No car.But he smiled as he saw what he wanted.

Lacey, shocked awake by the shooting, grabbed her revolver, scrambled off the makeshift bed, and rushed into the living room. She saw Scott kneeling on the couch, aiming through the open slats of a window.He glanced around at her.“Come here,” he said.She hurried to the window.“See that guy out there? Dukane’s in the garage. He’ll be coming out in a minute, and the guy’ll try to nail him. Take my place here. I’ll go to the front. When Dukane comes out, start shooting.”“It’s too far.”“Doesn’t matter. With fire coming from two angles, he won’t know whether to…”“Shit or go blind?”“Exactly.”Lacey nodded, and Scott ran out the front door. She cocked the revolver. She lined up the distant man in the sights, glanced away at the garage door, then back to the man. From his location, it looked as if the garage would give Dukane shelter for the first two or three yards. Then he would be in the open.Her hand was sweaty on the walnut grips.Too bad the man’s so far away, she thought. If he was half that distance, she’d stand a much better chance of hitting him.Just as well, maybe. She didn’t need another killing on her conscience.The garage door opened. She sighted on the man and held her breath. Then she glanced again at the door. Dukane stepped out, a large metal container in each hand. But he didn’t run. Instead, he set them outside the door and vanished into the garage. Moments later, he reappeared. With a ladder!He spread the ladder’s legs, climbed it, and boosted himself onto the roof of the garage.He was gone.Seconds passed. Lacey licked her parched lips.Then a single gunshot roared in the stillness.The distant figure of the rifleman lurched as if kicked, and dropped flat.Dukane climbed down the ladder. He made a thumbs-up gesture toward Lacey, then carried the ladder back into the garage. He picked up the two containers, and strolled across the open area.He and Scott came into the house, beaming like boys who’d just won a no-hitter.“Nice play,” Scott said.“The bastard came too close, first time across. I chickened out of the return run.”“Wonder if we can get his rifle.”“Not worth the risk. The rear man would pick us off. But I got what I wanted.” He raised the cans: a two-gallon tin of gasoline and a gallon container of turpentine.Lacey frowned. “Turpentine? You’re going to take the paint off Hoffman?”“Right.”“Don’t.”“Could come in very handy. Lacey, you stay out here and keep an eye on the situation. Scott, get your recorder. No time like the present to get his story.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Statement of Samuel Hoffman July 20Okay. You want me to talk, I’ll talk. Give you everything you need to know for your fuckin’ book that’s gonna get you killed.I’m Sammy Hoffman. You guys know that, right? Okay. So I’ll start with something you don’t know. How about this? I banged my English teacher way back in high school. She was a cunt. That’s what you do to cunts, bang’em.The one I really wanted, it was Lacey. Used to spend all my time looking at her, thinking how she’d look naked, thinking how her tits’d feel, and her ass and her puss. Now I know, now I know. Only wish I’d got her then. She was just sixteen. Should’ve took her someplace and kept her. But I was chicken-shit. She was too damn beautiful. Scared me off. Yeah, well, got her at last. Well worth the wait, I tell you that. You guys oughta have a sample, if you haven’t already.Okay, so I had this hard-on for Lacey but I was scared to touch her and this English teacher bitch pissed me off so I did her instead. Right on top of her desk after school. It was a kick.I was dumb, then. If I was smart, I’d of turned the bitch’s switch off so she couldn’t put her mouth on me. But I didn’t, and she did.Adiós, Oasis.So I’m on the road, here and there and everywhere, doing people every chance I get, always on the move. Shit, I’ve probably got kids from one end of the country to the next,’less all the hons got themselves scraped. Yeah, well, plenty were probably on the pill.Left lots of graves, too. Dead men don’t yap. Learned my lesson from the English teacher. See, she taught me something, after all. Thought I was stupid.Stupid, all right. I should’ve stayed on my own. That was my big mistake.Klein. Harold Klein. Met him in LA. A bar on La Cienaga. Tiny’s Place. We tipped a few, and he saw my piece and we started jabbing and he figures I’m up for some action. Says he needs a driver and he’ll pay me a thousand. That sounded good, only he didn’t level. Told me he was hitting a Wells Fargo. I park in front of the bank, only he goes in next door to this TV station and blows the face off this anchor gal, Theresa Chung. Remember her?Okay. We get the fuck out of there and he has me drive up in this canyon and stop. Only instead of pulling out the bucks he owes me, he pulls a Colt automatic. Dead men don’t yap, right? Only he didn’t figure on Sammy Hoffman, and guess who winds up in the ditch?Next thing I know, I wake up in the middle of the night with a muzzle up my mouth. Friends of Harold, right? Wrong. Co workers. They figure, if I’m good enough to put the dark on Harry, I’m good enough for them. Smart fellas.Too bad I wasn’t that smart. I’d of kissed them off.But I went along, and pretty soon I’m a hotshot assassin for The Group. They don’t want people snooping into their business, you know? Blowing the whistle on them? Snatching off some of their converts for deprogramming? That sort of shit. They set up the hits real good and paid me through the nose and took good care of me. I was living like a fuckin’ tycoon.Who’d I hit? Senator Cramer, for one. Guy was calling for an official investigation. Seems his son got mixed up in the SDF. That’s The Group, you know. The Spiritual Development Foundation. Anyway, that’s what got me into this piss soup, that bastard from People catching a shot of me in the crowd.Before Cramer was that nigger mayor in Detroit. Jackson? The LA city council explosion, that was me. The New York police commissioner, Barnes. This ain’t necessarily in order, you understand. I can give you guys all the details later, when you get me out of this rat trap and take me someplace safe. Give you something to shoot for. If I tell you everything now, you might just let those bastards have me, right? I’m no fool. I’ll just whet your appetites a bit, okay?Remember Dickinson? Heart attack in his office while he was dickin’ his secretary? That was me. Tricked up his rubbers. Chavez, the investigative reporter? He put his nose into the SDF. The o.d. that put him away, it wasn’t selfinflicted: it was Sammyinflicted.That’s just scratching the surface. There’s plenty more. Shit, I worked six years for The Group.Anyhow, it was that People shot that put me away. They figure I can’t show my face around, so I’m the perfect sucker for their experiment. They’re gonna make me invisible, they say. Sure. Invisible. And shit smells like Chanel, right?Only they do.

Lacey knocked on the door.“Come on in,” Dukane said.Lacey opened it, and stepped into the bathroom. The air was pungent with the smell of turpentine. Scott and Dukane, kneeling over Hoffman, were scouring him with washcloths. The small cassette recorder from Scott’s attaché case rested on the toilet seat.Scott smiled up at her. His face was sweaty, damp hair clinging to his forehead. “How’s it going?” he asked.“One of the men changed positions. He went over to the body. He’s still near it.”“They had to correct their field of fire,” Dukane said. Tipping the turpentine can, he dampened his washcloth and started working on Hoffman’s shoulder. Most of the back was clear, now. The arms, still painted, remained cuffed behind him. One leg was gone, as if it had been amputated below the rump. Scott was busy cleaning the other.“How about joining the party?” Hoffman asked. “I been entertaining these guys with my exploits. Great stuff, I hate you to miss it.”She ignored him. “There’s plenty of food,” she said. “Shall I make some breakfast?”“I’m starving,” Scott said.“Bacon and eggs all right?”“Can’t eat that shit,” said Hoffman. “Get me some beef, and don’t cook it.”“What about you, Matt?”“Bacon and eggs sound fine. I could use some coffee, too.”“Gonna get me that meat?”“It’s frozen,” she said.“So unfreeze it.”She left the bathroom, never mentioning why she had come in. She couldn’t ask them to move out, and she certainly had no intention of using the toilet in front of them. In a kitchen cupboard, she found a plastic pitcher. She lowered her pants and squatted over it. When she finished, she flung its contents out the front door. Then she washed her hands, and set about preparing breakfast.

Guess she didn’t want to hear, huh? I get the feeling she don’t like me.Anyway, The Group’s got this lab. It’s out in Iowa, looks just like a farm. Even grow stuff there. The lab’s underground, all kinds of security. Make up all their shit there: potions, amulets, stuff like that. Witchin’ shit.Okay, they take me to the lab. I figure I’m in for it. I mean, how they gonna make a guy invisible, you know? I figure I’m in for shots, at least. God only knows. You don’t make a guy invisible with food coloring.But they don’t put me in a cell or a dissection room or nothing, they put me up in a nice room aboveground. I’ve even got my own little enclosed garden right outside my door. This isn’t so bad after all, I figure.And it gets even better. These two gals come in, and they’re both fantastic knock outs. One of them, the gal in charge of the project, she’s…you’d have to see her. Give you wet dreams. But man, I know right off I’d be in deep shit if I crossed her. It’s her eyes. She has this look like she wouldn’t mind eating your heart. Well, that wasn’t what I wanted eaten so I figured I’d keep off her.The other, her assistant, wasn’t any slouch but she didn’t have that wicked look so I was hoping to get a piece of her.Okay, they’re in charge. They’re witches, and the gorgeous one turns out to be the leader of the whole ball of wax. Laveda herself. I’d worked six years for her, never seen her. Keeps herself a low profile.They come in one morning before dawn, it’s a Wednesday, with a sack. Laveda tells me to open it. I do, and inside is this guy’s head. Nothing else, just his head. A fresh one.“What am I supposed to do?” I say. “Eat it?” They don’t even crack smiles. Instead, Laveda hands me these black beans and tells me what to do.I’m not a squeamish guy, you know? I was okay, sticking the beans in his mouth and ears and nose. Then it came to the eyes. You oughta try it sometime. I’ve gouged a few eyes in my time, but I never stuck around to inspect the damage. Anyway, okay, I popped this guy’s eyes and stuck the beans in and shut the lids. Made my skin crawl.Then they give me a shovel and we go out in my little garden and I have to dig a hole. It only has to be a foot deep. When I’m done, we all get naked. I figure, this is getting better and better. Maybe next is an orgy, who knows? I’d heard plenty about Laveda and her orgies.Okay, the three of us are standing there bare-ass in the dark, with Coral hanging onto the head. Laveda’s wearing this gold chain belt with a dagger at one side and a gold flask on the other. She takes out the dagger. Coral gets on her knees and holds out the head.What Laveda does then, she starts carving a design on the guy’s forehead. Looks like a figure-eight with x’s in the middle.Okay. After she’s done with the cutting, she takes the flask off her belt and opens it and holds it up at the sky. “The river flows,” she says. “Its water is the water of life. All powerful is he who drinks at its shore.” She takes two drinks out of the flask, and some of it runs off her chin and I see it ain’t Scotch, it’s blood. Then she takes a mouthful of the stuff and gets the guy’s head from Coral and spits it right into his mouth.Coral does the same thing. Two gulps for her, one for the goddamn head. Then it’s my turn. I’ve done a lot of shit, but I’m no fuckin’ vampire. You oughta try a swig of blood, sometime. Put you off your appetite for a week. But that wasn’t the worst, the worst was putting my mouth up to this guy’s mouth. I didn’t want to shut my eyes, you know, and have the gals think I couldn’t take it. So I stare the poor dead bastard right in the face and hold his mouth open and try to spit in the blood without touching his lips. But I touched them, all right. And his mouth couldn’t hold all this blood, you know, so it came slopping back like he was puking.Shit. Enough of that. So much for my goddamn orgy. We plant the head face-up, and that’s it. The gals slip into their clothes again. Adios, see you tomorrow.I brushed my teeth so hard my gums bled and I figured it was more of his blood, and the harder I brushed the more blood came out. I figured the only way to get all the blood out was to upchuck. Didn’t do that. It might break the spell, or whatever, and we’d have to go through the whole thing again. So I finally quit brushing, and gargled a lot with Irish, and spent the rest of the day killing the bottle.The next morning, Coral comes in alone. She’s got a bottle under one arm, and I’m hoping it isn’t blood. It’s Remy Martin. Not for me, though. It’s for our pal in the garden. She has me water the fuckin’ head with it. A whole fifth of cognac. I suggest we save some for ourselves—I mean, is he gonna miss a couple of shots? But she doesn’t go for it. Doesn’t go for me, either, when I try out a few moves on her.Okay, we keep this up for a week. Every morning, she wakes me up and we go out with a fresh bottle to dump on the ground.I keep putting moves on her, and she’s getting more bitchy all the time. But I figure I’ll get her, sooner or later. One way or the other.The eighth day, Laveda’s with her. She tells me to keep my hands off Coral, and I figure it out. They’re a couple of dykes, right? Says she’ll cut off my cock…Yeah, well, she hasn’t yet. The cunt.Anyway, after she lays this on me we go out to the garden and get naked, and Laveda starts this chanting shit, holding up a fifth of Remy. I was cold sober. I never do drugs. Maybe she had me hypnotized or something, who knows? But anyway, pretty soon I hear this other voice—a man’s voice. Coming out of nowhere. It says, “What are you doing?”Laveda hands me the bottle. “Say, ‘I’m watering my head.’”So I say it.“Let me water the head,” the voice says.“Tell him ‘no.’”So I tell him no.Then the dirt over the head starts to move, like a finger’s drawing in it. It draws the same design, that figure-eight with the x’s, like Laveda cut in the guy’s forehead.“Now he may water your head,” Laveda tells me.“Go ahead,” I say.Something snatches the bottle out of my hand and it falls to the ground and the cognac spills out. That’s it. We get dressed, and the gals take off.I spent a while out there looking for a speaker. Figured there might be one hidden around somewhere. But if there was, I didn’t find it.The next morning, Laveda and Coral come back. First we strip down, then I have to dig up the head. What a fuckin’ sight it was. They made me take out the beans, dig’em right out of his ears and nostrils and mouth and…and out of his eyeholes. The beans’d sprouted a little, by then. Laveda held up this mirror and told me to put one of the beans in my mouth. “Don’t swallow it,” she told me. She didn’t have to tell me that.I put one in my mouth, like she said, and held it in my cheek like a wad of chewing tobacco. Only it didn’t taste like tobacco. It tasted like a rotten fuckin’ corpse.Anyway, I look at the mirror and bango, I’m gone.

Lacey knocked on the bathroom door and entered. “Breakfast is…”On the floor where Hoffman had been, she saw six bandages: three hovering several inches above the tile, the others pressed against it. And she saw his silver penis and scrotum. He lay on his back, one handcuff around a leg of the sink.“Just in time,” Hoffman said.Dukane poured turpentine onto a washcloth. The cloth left his hand, moved through the air, and began to stroke the penis.“He’s free ?”“Just one hand,” Scott told her.“All I need,” said Hoffman, rubbing himself to an erection. “Squeamish guys. Don’t want to touch my dick. How about you?” He flung the cloth at Lacey. It slapped her upraised arm, and she knocked it away. “Rather lick me? Wouldn’t get the paint off, but it’d get me off.”“Shut up!” Scott yelled.“Touchy touchy. This guy’s got a hard-on for you, hon. Don’t we all?”Dukane pounded down, his fist hammering the emptiness near the bandages.Hoffman grunted.Lacey hurried from the bathroom. “Breakfast is on the table,” she called back.She rushed into the kitchen, breathing deeply, fighting her revulsion. Afraid she might vomit, she bent over the kitchen sink.“That guy’s an animal,” Scott said, stepping up behind her.“Stop maligning animals.”He laughed softly, and kissed her bare shoulder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, just popped a bean in my mouth. Just like that, I’m gone. I look down and can’t see nothing—no legs, no dick, no nothing. I feel myself. I’m all there, just like normal, only I can’t see myself. I give Coral’s tits a squeeze and watch’em bunch up, and Laveda stabs me in the back with a fuckin’ dagger.Hurts like shit. I go down, wondering why they went to all the trouble making me invisible if they’re gonna kill me.Laveda says, “I warned you not to touch her.” Then she tells me I’ll be okay, I can’t be killed’less I’m hit in a vital place like my heart or a big artery or I’m burned, or something; I’ve drunk at the river and I’m all powerful and I’ll heal up in no time flat. She tells me to get up, and I do. I can feel myself bleeding for a while, but pretty soon it stops.She tells me to take the bean out of my mouth. I do, and presto I’m there again.Long as I’ve got one of the beans in my mouth, she says, I’ll be invisible. When I spit it out, you can see me again. But if I swallow one, it’s so long Sammy for weeks, maybe months. It’ll digest, see, and some of it’ll get in my system. Long as any’s in my system, I stay invisible.Then Laveda lets me know what it’s all about. She’s got big plans for me. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to head off for D.C. and do a job on the president, the V P, the speaker of the house. Presto, instant chaos. That’s just the thing for Laveda and her bunch. They’ll be free to do what ever they want. And it’ll be a cinch for me, right? I can go anywhere, do anything. I can’t be stopped. I pretend it’s a great idea.Well that night, I get a few ideas of my own. Laveda’s right, I can go anywhere and do what ever I please; I could think of plenty of stuff I’d rather do than spend the rest of my life knocking off people for The Group.So I strip and pop a bean in my mouth, and do a little exploring. I explore my way right into Laveda’s room, which turns out to be just down the hall. Coral’s there, too. Just like I figured.They’re sitting around gabbing. Turns out, I’m the first guy they’ve done this number on. Laveda’d tried it herself, a year ago, and Coral’s saying how she’d like a crack at being invisible.Laveda sort of puts her off. I think I know why, too. Reason she hasn’t gone around making lots of her people invisible. It gives them too much power. She wants all the power for herself, wants to stay in control. She just made me invisible to get a job done for her. And I figure I’m probably expendable, she’ll wipe me out once I get it done.Well, they finally leave off their jabber and get down to rolling on the bed. You should’ve seen those two go at each other. Grunting and groaning, licking, eating each other out. I almost popped my load, just watching. Must’ve gone on for an hour. I wanted to jump right on’em and stick it in the nearest hole, but I held off. Didn’t want to mess with Laveda. The gal’s bad news.They finally get done. I see Coral making for the john, so I get in quick ahead of her. She starts taking a shower. Okay, I know Laveda’s out in the other room and if she gets me, I’ve had it. But I’m invisible, right? How’s she gonna hurt me if she can’t find me?So I climb into the shower with Coral. She suspects something when the door slides open, but before she has a chance to yell I bash her head on the tile and knock her out. More than out, dead. So then I lay her down in the tub and have my fun. You ever let it go after holding back for an hour? Nothing like it. Thought I’d bust, I came so hard.Okay, I get out of the tub and dry off—don’t want to be tracking water, you know. Then I get scared’cause I see myself in the fuckin’ mirror! It isn’t me, really. The place is all steamy and there I am, like a hole in it. Bad news! I wanted to get outa there. So I hurried and finished drying, and snuck open the door a crack, just enough to see out. Laveda was on the bed. Looked like she was asleep.I spent a lot of time watching her, wondering if I oughta turn off her switch. I mean, I knew I should. The bitch and her whole bunch would be after me for doing her playmate, and I’d be up shit creek if they ever got their hands on me. But I tell you what, I was scared. You’d be scared too. She’s not what you’d call normal. I figured, what if I made a try for her and I couldn’t kill her no matter what I did? She’s got this magic, right? I finally figure I’m not gonna chance it. I’ll just pull a vanishing act.So I sneak out and get back to my room for the rest of the beans. Then it’s adios.No sweat at all, getting out of the compound. I walked right past the guards. Nothing there for them to see, except the beans in my hand, and those aren’t big enough that anybody’d notice. The one in my mouth, that’s invisible. Guess’cause it’s mixed up in my spit. I figured out, after a bit, I could pop’em all in my mouth when I needed to hide’em. Smart, huh? Better than leaving the things behind when I wanted to sneak in someplace: lost two, that way.Okay, so I’m out of the compound and walking down this road. It’s three miles, all of it through Group property, till I get to a highway. Remember now, I’m not only bare-ass, I’m barefoot. You try walking three miles barefoot, sometime.I wanted a car bad. You get out in the sticks around midnight and see how many cars go by. Zip. And the ones that did come along, how was I gonna stop’em? I finally made it to a farm house, dog tired. Speaking of dogs, that’s where I ran in to my first. I don’t know if they can see me or what, but they sure as shit know where to find me. This one at the farm raised hell, even took a nip out of my leg before I killed it.Farmer Joe came out to snoop around, and that gave me a chance to get inside. I waited till he was back in bed, then got a knife and went upstairs and slit his gullet. Got the wife, too. They had three kids. Just one was a girl. I had a good time with her.After that, I wanted to sack out. But what am I gonna do with the bean in my mouth? Don’t want it falling out while I’m asleep. So I just went ahead and swallowed it.I woke up, after a couple of hours, when this car pulled up in front. There’s Laveda, and half a dozen guys from the compound. The guys are wearing these weird masks. What they are, I figure out later, they’re infrared gadgets. Put on one of those suckers, and you can see me. See my heat image. Those bastards from The Group think of everything.Okay, I figured they wouldn’t know for sure I was there. They might think I just did my business and moved on, long as they didn’t see me. So I hid. I ran over to the boys’ room, and dumped the crap out of their toy box and hid in there. Sure enough, they didn’t find me. Spent half an hour turning the house, then gave up.But the fuckers set the place on fire. Insurance, I guess. Just in case they’d missed me. Tells you something, don’t it? Sure told me something. Told me they wanted my ass dead.I just about cooked, but I got out of that place. Their car was gone. Great, I’m home free. Then I catch a slug in the shoulder and go down. This is it, Sammy. They’ll move in now, and Laveda’ll get your dick just like she said. Except they don’t move in. Just this one guy comes out from beside the garage, decked out with a rifle and those infrared goggles. I play dead, and he’s dumb enough to come close and it’s bye-bye dummy. I grab the rifle out of his hands and ram it through his teeth and blast off the back of his head.Then I go over to the garage and hotwire one of Farmer Joe’s cars, and get the fuck out of there.

Lacey threw open the bathroom door. “A car’s coming!”“Cops?” Dukane asked.“I don’t think so.”She ran ahead of them, pressing her shirt to her damp breasts.After cleaning the breakfast dishes, she had given in to her need to clean herself. She filled the sink with warm water, then checked the windows to be certain the snipers remained in their normal positions. Returning to the kitchen, she used liquid detergent to wash her hair. Bent over the sink to rinse, she worried about leaving the house unguarded, imagined the front door bursting open, men with guns rushing in. As soon as the soap was out of her hair, she grabbed a hand towel and again checked the windows.Everything looked all right.But she didn’t like the kitchen, felt blind at its sink, and vulnerable. So she filled two pans with water and carried them into the living room. Facing the front window, she took off her clothes. She sponged herself with warm soapy water, and wiped the slickness away with cool water from the other pan. It felt very good. Maybe later, once the men were done in the bathroom, she would ask them to move Hoffman out and she could take a real bath. When was the last time? Yesterday? Just before going out to dinner with Scott. Only yesterday. It seemed like weeks ago.She squeezed the sponge against the nape of her neck and felt the cool water stream down her back. It slid over her buttocks and between them, and trickled down the backs of her legs. If Scott were here, he could wash her back…She imagined him coming into the room, and smiling with delight when he saw her. She would turn to face him. He would kiss her mouth, her neck, her breasts. His tongue would prod her nipples.Rather lick me?The memory of Hoffman’s words smashed her fantasy. She tossed the sponge into the water and picked up a dish towel. She patted her legs dry. She rubbed between them. She looked around at the cut on her buttock. It was slightly red at the edges, but scabbed over. It hadn’t been much more than a scratch, after all. But it itched more than the others that threaded her body. She resisted an urge to rake it with her fingernails, but rubbed it gently with the towel.As she started to dry her arms, the sound of a car engine froze her. She glanced out the window. A black Rolls Royce sped up the road toward the house.Whipping the towel around her waist, she scooped up her shirt and raced for the bathroom.Now Scott and Dukane were rushing past her, pistols ready. Scott checked the side window. Dukane kicked over a water pan as he dashed to the front. He crouched at the window.Scott ran to the hall.Lacey pulled her shirt on, grabbed her revolver off the rocking chair, and knelt beside Dukane. The car had stopped in front of the door—no more than ten yards away. Through its tinted windows, she saw moving, indistinct shapes.A door flew open. A naked woman was thrust from the car. She fell facedown, and the door slammed shut.Her back and rump were striped with raw, bleeding wounds. She pushed herself up. On her knees, she looked at the window. Lacey moaned, cold with sickness as she recognized the swollen, bloody face. Jan. The flesh of her chest and belly was tattered. Blood spilled from open wounds where her nipples should have been, flowed from her vagina, sheathing her thighs, forming a puddle on the ground between her knees.The rear window slid down three inches. Lacey saw the crown of a bald head inside the car.“We want Hoffman,” a man’s voice called through the opening. “Give us Hoffman, and we’ll let the rest of you go. If you’re…”Dukane fired. With the first shot, the pale scalp erupted and dropped from sight. The second shot smashed into the window, halfway down, blasting out a cone of glass but not breaking through.The car sprang forward.Until that instant, Lacey didn’t see the cord—the white electrical cord around Jan’s left ankle and running up to the crack at the bottom of the car door. It snapped taut. Tugged Jan’s leg from under her. Dragged her, spinning and bouncing, alongside the car.Lacey’s own scream drowned out the screams from Jan. Covering her ears, she lowered her head and shut her eyes tight.Finally, she raised her head. The car had turned around and was now speeding back. Its body hid Jan from her view until it turned right and headed up the entry drive. Then she glimpsed the tumbling carcass.Throwing herself away from the window, she grabbed the nearer pan and vomited into it. As convulsions wracked her, she realized vaguely that her towel had fallen away. It didn’t matter. Her mind reeled at what she’d seen. Would they do the same to Nancy? To her? Lacey’s stomach was empty, now, but she strained with dry heaves. Her mouth dripped hot stomach fluids. Her eyes dripped tears.“You stay with Lacey,” Scott told Dukane. “I’d better go in and get the rest of Hoffman’s story.”Dukane helped Lacey to the couch. Lying on it, she felt the soft fabric against her buttocks. She pulled a pillow down to cover her bare groin.“What about Nancy?” she asked.“There’s nothing we can do.”Dukane handed the pan ties and shorts to Lacey. “We could give them Hoffman,” she said.He turned away, and sat on an edge of the coffee table. As Lacey put on her clothes, he said. “They won’t let us go.”“Why not?”“Several reasons. First, we killed some of their people: the cops in Tucson, the sniper, the guy in the car just now. They can’t let us get away with that. Second, we’ve been in contact with Hoffman and they’ve got to assume he talked, maybe gave out the formula for becoming invisible.”“Did he?”“He did. That, plus plenty of other information. The Group can’t allow that. How many reasons is that?”“Two.”“Three, even if the other reasons didn’t exist, they’d want us for the sport. The people in The Group are evil. I’ve had some prior experience with them. I know. They love the power, love to make people cringe at their feet, to torture and kill for their own pleasure.”“Doesn’t sound good,” Lacey said.“It’s not.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Okay, I’m tooling along in Farmer Joe’s car, keeping a sharp look out for the bunch from the compound. But I never do see’em. The farmhouse was north of the compound, so they must’ve figured I’d keep going that way. Well, I didn’t. I went east. Got clean away.But it gets to be daylight, and there’s some traffic on the highway, and I start getting queer looks from the jerks in the other cars. Doesn’t take me long to figure out why. I’m invisible, right? So who’s driving my car?I don’t give much shit where I’m going—long as it’s not back to the compound—so I pull into a Denny’s and climb in back of the first car I find unlocked. Wherever they’re going, I’ll go. So I’m sitting there in the backseat and along comes not just momma and poppa, but three brats. Being invisible’s no cinch. When the door opens, I knock this little bastard on his ass and get out of there. The kid’s bawling, tells his dad somebody pushed him, and the old man gives him a whack for fibbing. Nice guy.Next time, I play it safe. A guy comes in the parking lot alone. I make sure he doesn’t lock up, then I go in Denny’s, in the kitchen there, and heist myself a coke and a couple of burgers and polish’em off while I wait for the guy.He takes me into Iowa City, to this university there. I find my way into a girls’ dorm. I tell you, thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Plenty of food for the taking, found me an empty room, and man the girls! You should’ve seen those hons in the showers.There’s one in par tic u lar, comes in for a shower every night around nine. A real honey, looks like a movie star, tits out to here. I’m sitting down so the steam won’t give me away. Front row seat. Watching her rub herself all over with soap. I’ve got a hard-on feels like it’s gonna bust.Well, this one night I can see she’s hot. Not just washing, you know, but feeling herself, rubbing her tits, playing around with her puss. Finally, she gets on her back with her legs up so the water’s hitting her quiff. I move in with my mouth. I’m licking and sucking and sticking my tongue in, and she’s so far gone she doesn’t know, like she thinks the spray’s doing it. Maybe she thought she was dreaming, I don’t know. Well, she’s squirming and moaning and rubbing her tits, and I just go ahead and put my dick right in. Should’ve seen her eyes bug out. Looks down at herself. Reaches down. I pull it out and give her a handful. She feels it up and down, like trying to figure out if it’s what she thinks. She looks real confused and scared, at first. Then she gets this funny little smile on her face, and puts it back in.I go ahead and hump the daylights out of her. She damn near screams when she comes.After we’re done, she starts drying herself off, frowning like she’s trying to figure something out. Then she says, “Are you here?”I take the towel, and finish drying her.“What are you?” she asks.I don’t answer.“Am I…imagining you? I’ve never…here I am, talking to myself. Shit.” Then she reaches out and touches me, touches my dick. “You sure don’t feel like an hallucination.” She gets this funny smile again, and goes down on her knees and sucks me off. “Don’t taste like one, either,” she says when she’s finished. “What ever you are, I hope you don’t go away.”“I’m the invisible man,” I whisper.“No shit?”“A government experiment went haywire. They’re after me.’Fraid I’ll spill the beans.” A good one, right? Spill the beans? Anyway, I tell her I’m hiding out’cause they’ll kill me, which wasn’t that far from the truth. If The Group ever got their hands on me…Well, this gal’s fascinated. Says I can hide out in her room, and she’ll take care of me.And she does. Man, does she take care of me! A real wild gal. Name was Robin, like the bird. The first couple days, she cut all her classes and stayed in the room with me. Only just left to get us food. Told all her friends she’d come down with something. It was like a fuckin’ honeymoon. Didn’t do nothing but play games.That, and talk. A great talker, Robin. Name me a woman that isn’t. She wanted to know the story of my life. I just made up a lot of shit, made me sound like a regular sweetheart. Most of all, she wanted to know how I got invisible, and what it was like. Said she wished she was that way, she’d do just what I did except she’d head over to the boys’ shower room. I let her know it wasn’t all fun and games, like how you freeze your ass off when it’s cold out, and how tough it is to get places. Like how do you drive?So she drags out her make up and shows me how to put it on so I’ve got a face. Puts a wig on me. Presto, I’ve got a head. After a couple of days, I have her go out and buy me some clothes and sunglasses. Now I’m all set. I don’t look like much. Look kind of weird, in fact, and even weirder when my mouth’s open, but I figure at least I’ll be able to get around at night like a human being.Robin’s got other ideas, too. She’s full of ideas. It’s June, see, and she’s got final exams coming up. So she puts me to work hiding out in faculty offices and heisting exams. Stupid stuff, but it gave me something to do and kept her happy.She also wants to even up a score. Her boyfriend dumped her for some bitch. They’re living off campus, so she drives me out there to take care of them. She just wants me to do some tricks, move some furniture around, make stuff float, scare the shit out of’em. But the gal turns out to be a fox so after I spook’em for a while, I do the guy, tear him up, chase the gal around with his head, have my own kind of fun.Well, Robin finds out all about it when she sees the newspaper. Calls me a maniac, shit like that. Frankly, I think she’s just pissed’cause I fucked the gal. But she’s also yelling about how the cops’ll come looking for her, seeing as she was the jilted lover. I figure she’s probably right. The cops’ll pull her in and she’ll finger me. So it’s adios Robin. I break her neck and light out.I take along her make up, and the clothes she bought me, and my six beans. I hide in a utility closet till night, then get the hell out of the dorm and steal her car. She isn’t gonna need it, right?The car’s hot, though. I’m no dummy. I know I’ve gotta dump it fast. So I drive downtown—what there is of it—and I see where a movie’s just getting out. None of the gals coming out of the theater are alone, so I follow this guy. When he gets to his car, I bash him. I scoot him over to the passenger seat, and bring my stuff over to his car.Smart, huh? Look at it this way: if I heist a car, somebody’s gonna miss it and call the cops. Probably by morning. There I am, stuck with another hot car before I hardly get used to it. But if I take the guy with it, he’s not gonna tell his car’s gone, right? Dead men don’t yap. And if a guy goes to the movies alone, you can lay odds he’s single. Won’t be a wife waiting up for him, worrying her tail off. So I figure I can use the car for a couple of days, at least, maybe longer. You ever need a car for a long haul, kill off the driver.Anyway, once I’ve got the guy’s car, I drive out in the boondocks, throw him in the trunk, and put on my makeup and clothes so I’ll pass for a normal person.I’m on the road a long time, after that. I drive at night. Rip off restaurants and houses for food. Sleep in the backseat when daylight hits, either that or take a house. I found one place where the folks were on vacation or something. Stayed there a week. But most of the time, the places weren’t deserted and I had to do the people. Couldn’t stay more than a day or two, then,’cause sure enough somebody’d come around snooping.Then it’d get in the papers. Goddamn papers. I know The Group, see, know they’re watching out for stuff like that. Probably sticking pins in a map. Not gonna quit till they’ve got my ass nailed.So then I get this bright idea. I grab a camper, an RV, off a couple of old farts I figure are retired and nobody’s gonna miss’em for a while. Then I head west. Keep my hands to myself, don’t leave a trail for the fuckin’ Group.First thing you know, I’m in Phoenix. I figure, hey, how about paying a visit to my old friends in Oasis?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Give us Hoffman!”The voice startled Lacey awake. She raised her head off the couch and saw Dukane crouched by the front window.“Give us Hoffman,” the tinny voice continued, “and we’ll let you live.”Lacey rushed to Dukane’s side. Looking out the window, she saw the black Rolls Royce stopped in front of the house—perhaps thirty feet away. The doors on its far side stood open, but the body of the car hid what ever was being done.“I warn you,” said the amplified voice. Lacey spotted its source: a man on a distant rise of land, speaking into a megaphone. “Give us Hoffman, or you will all be annihilated. There is no escape for you unless you do as we ask. You have seen what we do to our enemies. Each of you will meet a similar end, if you continue to ignore our request.” The megaphone was lowered.Lacey heard the bathroom door open. Scott rushed across the floor and knelt at the other window.From behind the car came a heavy clank. A hammer striking metal? The pounding continued with a slow, even rhythm.“What’re they doing?”Scott frowned at Lacey, and she saw anguish in his eyes. He backhanded speckles of sweat off his upper lip. “Maybe you shouldn’t watch.”“You think it’s Nancy?”“Yeah.”Dukane suddenly rushed from the room.The pounding stopped for a few seconds, then started again. Lacey scurried over to Scott’s window.“Sounds like they’re driving in stakes,” he said.“Oh God.” Lacey sank down. Turning, she sat beneath the window with her back against the wall. She brought up her legs, hugged them to her breasts, pressed her mouth to one knee.The slow pounding kept on.Dukane returned to the room, crouching low, a wine bottle in hand.“Nobody’s moving in,” he said, and squatted near the other front window. “Can you tell what they’re doing?”“Driving in stakes, I think.”“Shit,” he muttered. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, tore it in half, and twisted one of the pieces into a strip. He stuffed it into the bottle’s mouth, and drew it out. The pungent fumes of gasoline stung Lacey’s nostrils.He reversed the rag and stuffed it into the bottle again. Three inches hung out like a wick.The pounding outside continued.“Anybody got a match?”Lacey hurled herself forward, scurried to the coffee table, and grabbed a lighter. She raced back to Dukane.“When I open the door, light the rag.”Lacey nodded, suddenly excited, eager to be striking back.Dukane jerked the door open.Lacey lighted the wick. As fire bloomed from the dripping rag, Dukane pitched the bottle. He slammed the door shut and dived into Lacey, throwing her to the floor as bullets burst through the wood above them. Splinters rained down.Dukane rolled off, and scrambled to his window. Lacey saw Scott take aim. She rushed to his side as the flaming car lunged forward, its far doors still open, leaving two men behind. One raced after it, yelling, his open Hawaiian shirt fluttering behind him like a cape. He turned a somersault as Scott’s bullet smacked the back of his head. The other man, on his knees with a hammer when the car left him unprotected, sprang to his feet. He ran toward the house, waving the hammer overhead like the tomahawk of a demented Apache.“Let him come!” Dukane yelled. “We can use him.”His naked body, as bony as a starved man, was streaked with blood. Not his own, Lacey assumed. What had he been doing? She was afraid to look away from him. He ran toward the window, shrieking, and looked about to dive through when a dozen bullets hit him from behind.Scott threw Lacey back.The man’s head drove into the window as if trying to squeeze itself between two of the flat, open slats of glass. They burst, tearing his scalp, ripping the sides of his face and neck. His chin came to rest on the sill. Blood slid down the inside of the wall.Lacey scooted backward, unable to look away from the ghastly man’s head. “Get…get him out of here!” she stammered. “Get him OUT!”“Oh good Christ,” Dukane said. He was staring out his window. “My God, those…!” Leaping away from the window, he took quick strides toward the dead man’s protruding head.“What did they…?”“Bastards!” Dukane swung up his leg in a vicious kick, catching the man in the face. The head bounded upward. Lacey glimpsed its torn, mashed face. The eyes seemed to glare at her with hatred for an instant as the head smashed through three more louvers. Then it dropped backward out of sight.Scott ran to the window. He knelt beside it and looked out. “Oh no,” he muttered. He turned to Dukane, his face ashen. “What’ll we do?”“Nothing.”“Nothing?”“We can’t get to her. They’d nail us before we got a yard.”“We can’t just leave her like that!”“Want to put her out of misery?”“No! My God, Matt! I don’t think she’s even hurt.”“Hard to tell.”“I think she’s all right. But my God, we can’t just…Stop!” he told Lacey, raising his hand like a traffic cop as she crawled forward. “You don’t want to see it.”“What? What did they do to her? You said she’s all right.”“They’ve got her staked down. With Jan.”“Jan?”“What’s left of her,” Dukane muttered. “They’re tied facetoface.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

I’m in the camper, right? I’m not gonna take it to Oasis, though. Suppose somebody digs up the old farts? I don’t want their RV popping up where I’m at. So I ditch it at the Phoenix airport, along with my clothes and make up, and don’t take nothing with me but my four beans. I’d lost two, by then. But the one I’d eaten was still doing its job. Still is. That’s close to two months, right?Okay, I take a Greyhound to Oasis. Leave the driving to them. The thing was nearly empty, so I didn’t have no trouble.First thing I do when I get there, I look up my old pal Lacey in the phone book. Only her name ain’t in it. I figure she’s either unlisted, or she’s got herself married, or she’s moved on. I can’t exactly stop someone on the street and ask, right? If she’s in Oasis, though, I’m gonna find her.So what I do, I head for the old lady’s market. To o much going on in the Safeway, people gonna be tripping over me. The market’s quiet, I know my way around. Hell, I damn near lived in that dump when I was a kid. After school, weekends. Beat the shit out of me if I gave’em any lip about it.Well, this is my chance to pay the old lady back. Spook her up, and do her. But first I’m gonna lay low. If Lacey’s still in town, she’s gonna pop up in the market sooner or later. Everybody does. Even the Safeway regulars, they show up for a frozen pizza or aspirin or some kind of odds and ends. So I’ll just hang out and wait.Only trouble is, the old bat’s got ears like a hawk. I don’t even make it through the first day, and she hears me moving around. It’s night, about an hour before closing time, when suddenly she perks up and starts acting scared and looking all over for me.Well, I like seeing her scared. Gives me a kick, throwing a fright into folks, but she’s special. I’m thinking of all the times she used to slam me around, whip me with the ironing cord. Her and the old man both. Too bad he kicked off before I got a chance at him, the old turd. Anyway, she’s plenty scared’cause of the noises, so I throw another one into her by opening up the cash register. That does it. She closes and high tails it.I’m pissed, right? There goes my big plan for laying low and waiting for Lacey to show up. So I’m eating a steak and soaking up a bottle of red to make myself feel better when some asshole starts pounding on the door. I toss a fuckin’ meat cleaver at him. Too bad I missed.So what happens next? A whole troop comes piling into the store. The old lady, the jerk that was at the door, some other gal, and guess who? My old pal, Lacey. Things are looking up, right? Only they take one look at the cleaver stuck in the door, and run off like the joint’s haunted.I go after’em. By the time I get to the door, though, they’re packed in this car and taking off.Well, at least I know Lacey’s still in town.A cop shows up, a little later. I just stand around and watch him search. When he takes off, I sack out in the storeroom.That was Friday night. I figured the old cow’d be back in the morning, but she didn’t open up all weekend. Spooked her good, I guess. Anyway, she comes in Monday morning and sees the mess I’d made. She always did hate messes. She wasn’t so scared, this time. Just pissed off. People came in, she’d tell’em it was vandals, probably kids. If they come back, she says, she’s gonna fix their wagon.So that night, some pal of hers shows up with a fuckin’ watchdog. I get out of there till they leave,’cause the dog’s gonna go for me, you know. Well, once they’re gone I sneak in again to take care of the mutt. It damn near got me, but I opened up its head with the meat cleaver and ripped the thing apart. Then I skinned it. Even tried some. I figure, shit, it tried to take a bite out of me. Turnabout’s fair play. Didn’t taste bad.I figure all hell’s gonna break loose when they find what’s left of the dog, so I get out of there before morning.Head over to the high school. Forgot school’s out for the summer, till I got there. But it turns out they’ve got summer school going, and most of it’s athletic stuff. So I’m okay, after all.Guess where I go? Where else, the girls’ shower room. I’ve got a thing about shower rooms, huh? When I was a kid, I used to always dream about getting into this one, grabbing a peek at all those hons, maybe copping a feel here and there. Used to wish I could turn invisible, and just spend all day with’em. Well, I knew that was impossible. Impossible, right? So I thought I’d dress up like a girl and sneak in that way. Figured I’d get caught, though. Well, now I’m invisible and I make my dream come true.These hons are a lot younger than the ones at the university. Some are still flat, some got these tiny little pointed tits that look like they’re half nipple, and some got boobs out to here. Some haven’t even got a bush, yet.I have a great time watching, sometimes grabbing a little feel. Tell you how you do it. I worked out a system at the university. You go for where their hands are. They’re rubbing soap on their pussy, you can get in a feel without them noticing. See what I mean?Anyway, around noon, things slow down in the shower department. Only a few in there, rinsing off after their volleyball and stuff. One’s this blonde with nifty little pointed tits. I follow her home. The house is empty, which works out nicely. I don’t want her knowing my secret, so I bop her on the head. Then I blindfold and gag her. Wait till she comes around before I start the fun and games.You’ll be happy to know I didn’t kill her. No point. Just draw attention to myself, right? The way I did it, she maybe kept it to herself. You live in a little town like Oasis, you don’t want it getting around you’ve been raped. People figure you brought it on yourself, you’ll never live it down. So I just left her, and headed on back to the market.Guess who’s there. Not just my old lady, but the asshole that owned the dog. He’s got himself a shotgun. And he doesn’t go away. He’s gonna blow the head off the bastard that put the dark on his pooch. So he says.The store’s full of people. They’re all buying one or two things, just for an excuse to visit the scene of the crime. Must be eight o’clock before the joint clears out.That’s when I go to it. Start spooking’em. The asshole almost gets me with his shotgun, though. Blows apart a coke display. Then I take his shotgun away and knock him on the head. I don’t have time to finish the job,’cause the old lady’s screaming her face off and running for the door.I catch up to her, throw her down, and tell her who I am. It’s Sammy, her darling son, come back to give her a taste of what she’d given him.She’s crying and pleading with me, saying she’s sorry. Man, is she sorry. Especially when I start snapping her fingers. I have to gag her to stop the screams. Then I drag her back to the meat counter.She and the old turd taught me how to be a butcher, how to use the bone saw and cleaver. Made me sick. All that blood. But then I got to like it, and they’d catch me eating the raw meat and they’d say I was stealing and knock me around. Well, they got their way. Made me into a butcher.So here goes the old bag, up on the chopping block. I go at her real slow, wanting to keep her alive for a while so she can see what a good butcher she turned out. I even use tourniquets on her stumps to keep the bleeding down so she’ll last a while longer.Hope she enjoyed it.Packaged her up real nice in cellophane, and laid her out with the rest of the beef. Then I went over to the guy. He’s still out cold. I start with his arm. Hack it right off. And then I hear the front door open.If it ain’t my old pal, Lacey! This, I know, is gonna be a banner day. I let her snoop around some, then I go for her. Knock her out, strip her down, and do what I’d been wanting to do since I was a high school kid. Ah, she was fine, just fine. You oughta know, right? You haven’t had a piece yet, you’re missing a bet.I don’t kill her. No way. I’ve got big plans for her. So I leave. Only one car in the lot, that and a pickup truck. I knew the pickup belonged to the dog man, so the car has to be Lacey’s. I get in, and lay down on the back floor.It’s a long wait. The cops come. I don’t know, it’s maybe an hour before she finally comes out. She checks the car real careful, almost like she knows I’m there. Doesn’t see me, though. Course not. So she starts up the car and heads for home.She lights up this cigarette, and I cough. God knows what she must’ve thought. Scared her plenty, though. Thinks I’m in the trunk, I guess. When she stops, she jumps on the trunk like maybe it isn’t locked. Has her face pressed up against the back window and here I am, looking right at her with her cheek mashed in.Then she runs off, goes in her house, and I get out of the car. I’m standing there, and out she comes with a revolver. Shit, this gal’s got balls. She goes right to the trunk and opens it, planning to blast me to hell. Course, I’m not there. I’m over by her front door, now, waiting for her to come back and open it.She gets it unlocked, and we’re about to go in when this jock shows up. He’s gonna play big hero and search around. So they go off together, and she doesn’t bother to lock the door up, so I help myself and go inside.Pretty soon, they come in. The guy looks all over the place. He wants to stay, but Lacey won’t bite, so he runs off and she’s finally alone.Almost alone, right?Gets herself some wine, and makes this call. That’s how I find out she works for the paper. Cute call. Doesn’t tell what I did to her. That’s gonna be her secret. Just between her and me. Like I say, you can’t let a thing like that get around, not in a town like Oasis.So after the call, lo and behold, she locks herself in the john and starts to run the bath. Never even suspects I’m right in there with her. I have myself a great time watching her strip, check herself out in the mirror, lay down in the tub, soap herself up, sip her wine. I just stand there enjoying it for a while. I figure, she’s mine now. I own her. I can do what I want with her, as much as I want.Well, I finally decide it’s time to spook her, start showing her who’s running the show. So I turn off the light. I hear her splashing. Then she’s out of the tub and pointing this pistol at her door as if I’m gonna come bashing through it. I just stand behind her and enjoy it. She’s scared shitless. I can hear her gasping, making little whiny sounds. I leave her alone till she starts to get dressed, then I nail her. This time’s better than before. It’s better when they’re conscious, squirming and crying. Adds a little flavor to the proceedings, you know?By the time I’m done, I’m beat. Busy day, right? So it’s time to hit the sack. I tie her to the bed and blindfold her. Don’t want her walking off—or limping, as the case may be. And I don’t want her learning my little secret till I’m ready to spring it on her. I want to see her reaction.Next morning, after some asshole comes to the door, I have another go at her. She’s better than ever, squirming and fighting. That should’ve given me a clue: the bitch has a lot more guts than I counted on. But I figure, once she sees I’m invisible, she’s gonna know she can’t win. She’ll fall in line.I let her know my plan. She’s gonna be like Robin in Iowa, gonna take care of me and keep her mouth shut, and go on about her business just like nothing’d happened. I warn her what’ll happen if she screws up. Then I go ahead and untie her and take off the blindfold.First thing she does, when she sees she can’t see me, is give me a kick in the nuts. Then she runs. But she’s smart, gotta give her that. She doesn’t try to run away, knows she can’t get away from someone she can’t see, so instead she goes in the kitchen thinking she’ll finish me off. Throws flour on me so she can see where I am, and sticks a knife in my back.That would’ve taken care of most guys, just like all the fuckin’ bullets you pumped in Tome. But I’m not most guys, right? I’ve drunk at the river, all that shit. Got magic powers. So she hurts me and gets away, probably thinks she’s killed me.But she hasn’t. I’m out of there and hiding by the time the cops show up. Well, I figure she’ll come back sooner or later. I’ll just wait her out.That’s what, Thursday? I hang around all day, and she doesn’t come back. Then I hang around Friday. When she doesn’t show up by Saturday, I figure it’s gonna be a long wait if I don’t get into action.I know she works for the paper, right? So I figure somebody there’s gonna know where to find her. Turns out, the cops are there. Somebody got offed with a letter opener, and there’s a note makes it sound like I done it. Weird, huh? Anyway, I stick around till the cops go. There’s only me and the editor. He’s acting funny.I get ready in case I have to follow him. Snatch a shirt and cowboy hat out of the cleaners next door. Hide the stuff out back, then I nail some bitch that’s getting in her car. I park it near the Trib’s lot, check her purse to see she’s got some blush-on for my face—better than nothing—and put my clothes in her car.I’m all set, right? I just wait a while, and the editor shows up. He checks his car real careful. Good thing I didn’t hide in it, huh?So I follow him to Tucson, and the rest is history. You know the rest. Except maybe how I got in the room, that second time. Lowered myself on a sheet. Man, that was hairy!When you got away that time, I figured I’d flush you out with a fire. Used cleaning fluid. Started four fires, in all. Burned real good.I would’ve had you and Lacey, only I got overconfident about the gun. Well, shit, can’t win’em all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“Might be good for you to listen, Lacey.”“Why?”“Know your enemy,” Scott said.She nodded. She wished she could leave and avoid the presence of Hoffman—even his voice disgusted and frightened her. But she was curious. “I don’t know,” she said.“You’ll have to hear him a lot,” he said, “if you’re going to collaborate on the book with me. Might as well get used to the idea.”“Yeah. All right.”Scott started the tape. “Okay,” Hoffman said. “You want me to talk, I’ll talk.”Dukane stepped over to a front window. He knelt at its side, and peered out.Looking at Nancy? Wondering if he could save her?“The one I really wanted, it was Lacey.”She tried not to listen. She thought about Nancy.The girl had been out there for nearly an hour now. Dukane had spent most of that time looking at her. “She’s gagged,” he’d told Lacey. That explained why there were no screams.He’d discussed shooting at the ropes or stakes that pinioned her spread-eagled to the ground. But even if he could free her that way, he supposed a fusillade would tear her apart before she could make the door—particularly since she was bound fast to Jan’s larger body. Maybe after dark…The tape played on. Lacey found herself listening, appalled by the list of Hoffman’s victims, by the bragging and insolent tone of his voice. She listened with dread to the ghastly method of transformation, sickened by the image of the severed head, the beans being pushed through its eyes, the drinking of blood. When he described his attack on Coral, she shivered at the memory of herself in the dark bathroom of her home.His tale of perversion and slaughter went on and on. Lacey thought about going into the kitchen, standing by the sink, running the water full blast to drown out the hideous sound of his voice. But she couldn’t force herself to leave. She felt compelled to listen, much as she might be drawn to a grisly accident, horrified and worried about the victims but curious to see their broken remains.Scott flipped the cassette over.Then Hoffman was in Oasis, looking for her name in the telephone directory. She remembered the series of obscene midnight calls that had made her life miserable two years ago until she took an unlisted number. Thank God for those calls. The new number had at least postponed Hoffman’s attack. If she’d only stayed away from the market…She gagged as Hoffman described eating the dog.Then he was in the shower room at the high school, secretly touching the girls, following one home to rape her. Lacey knew most of the people in Oasis. She wondered who the girl was. Pitied her. But it could’ve been so much worse.When he told of breaking his mother’s fingers, Lacey knew what was coming. She didn’t want to hear about the butcher job. With a finger in each ear, she blocked the sound. But her mind saw him hacking Elsie apart, wrapping the pieces in cellophane. Scott, sitting only a few feet away, looked at her with sadness in his eyes. Then he blushed and turned away.Lacey took the fingers from her ears. “Ah, she was fine,” Hoffman said. “Just fine.” Who did he mean? “You oughta know, right. You haven’t had a piece yet, you’re missing a bet.”Scott glanced at her, made a shy smile, and lowered his gaze to the floor.Lacey, suddenly understanding, felt heat rush to her skin. Bad enough that Hoffman should violate her, but to brag about it, to suggest that Scott…What could she expect from a bastard like Hoffman?She listened to the way he hid in her car, how he sneaked into the house, how he stood close to her as she phoned James. With growing dread, she waited for his description of the attack. She watched Scott as Hoffman spoke. He sat with his legs crossed, his hands gripping his knees. “This time’s better than before. This time she’s conscious, at least till the very end.” He stared at the floor, his face dark red. “It’s better when they’re conscious, squirming and crying.” Scott raised his face. He looked at her, and she saw tears shining in his eyes.My God, she thought, he’s crying for me.She hesitated only a moment, then crawled across the floor to him and sat at his side. He took her hand.“First thing she does when she sees she can’t see me, is give me a kick in the nuts.”Scott squeezed her hand. He looked at her and grinned as Hoffman told how she stabbed him. Then they listened as he described following Carl to the hotel.At last, it was over.Scott turned off the machine.Dukane turned away from the window, a strange pleased look on his face. He sat with his back to the wall. Grinning. “Listening to him…I got an idea. I know how we might save Nancy. It’s a risk for all of us. It may not even work, but it stands a decent chance. I think we owe it to her.”“What’s your idea?” Scott asked.“Send Hoffman out for her.”Lacey groaned as the words clutched her bowels. She felt numb all over.“We’d have to let him loose,” Scott muttered.“As I said, it’s a risk. He might try to get away, or he might turn on us. In either case, he’d be hard to stop. But he’s awfully worried about Laveda. I don’t think he’d want to make a break, not with the place surrounded. By now, somebody out there might have a pair of those infrared goggles.”“The goggles could kill his chance of getting to Nancy.”“We’d have surprise on our side. They probably aren’t watching constantly with those things—if they have them at all. They certainly won’t expect us to send Hoffman out for the girl.”“I don’t know.”“Lacey?”“I…He’s a monster. He’ll try something. He’ll try to kill us or…if he does get away, all the innocent people he’ll kill…”“His chances of escape are remote,” said Dukane. “I think he knows that. As long as he sticks with us, he has some firepower on his side. If I were him, I’d stick with us until I’m sure we’ve had it. Then I’d chance a break.”“He’s put Lacey through hell,” Scott said. “If he does take you and me out…God only knows what he’d do to her.” He placed a hand on Lacey’s knee, held it tightly. “I don’t want to risk that.”“All right,” Dukane said.“Wait.” Lacey covered Scott’s hand and squeezed it. “We can’t leave her out there. She…as Matt said, we owe her. Let’s give it a try.”

Lacey sat on the floor, her back to the couch, her legs drawn up protectively as Dukane led Hoffman in. One cuff was attached to Dukane’s left wrist; the other stood out sideways.Scott followed, several paces behind, with Jan’s shotgun aimed toward the area above the floating cuff.Lacey raised her revolver and aimed at the same empty space.“If it ain’t Annie Oakley,” Hoffman said. “Don’t look so worried, huh? I’m doing you guys a favor.”As they approached the broken front window, Dukane removed the handcuffs. He slid a small carving knife from his rear pocket. “Take this,” he said. “But leave it outside once you’ve cut her free.”The knife left his hand. He backed away.“I’m supposed to go out the window, right?”“Right. We’ll open the door on your way back.”“If I come back, huh?”“If you don’t, you’ll end up in Laveda’s hands. Sooner or later.”“Yeah yeah.”“Get going.”The knife, hovering several feet off the floor, turned toward the broken window. The end of its handle lowered against the sill.“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Hoffman said. He sounded impressed. “Look at them, will you?”“We’ve seen.”“You just want the one underneath, right?”“Right.”“Other’s dead as a carp.” The knife raised and shot through the opening. “Ha! Right on target. She can’t feel it anyway, huh?” After a pause, he said, “Look out, belowwww.”Dukane crouched by the window.As Scott hurried to the other one, curiosity overcame Lacey’s distaste. She joined him, pistol ready, and peered out. Immediately, she regretted it. She gagged, but managed to swallow the bitter fluid that gushed up her throat.She forced herself not to look away. The arms and legs of both women were spread wide and bound to metal stakes, but the mangled carcass on top hid most of Nancy from her view. Flies swarmed over the tattered skin of Jan’s back and rump. The rear of her head had been scraped bald. A splinter of bone protruded from her left arm. Her left leg was dislocated and stretched far longer than the other; Lacey saw a knife embedded in its buttock.As she watched, the knife slid out. It moved slowly over the ground to the staked foot, and sawed through the rope. Though Nancy’s foot remained bound to Jan’s, it was now free of the stake. It didn’t move.The knife crossed the area between the spread legs, and cut the next rope.It dropped out of sight beside the legs, and reappeared sliding along the ground near Nancy’s outstretched left arm. It cut through the rope, then returned over the ground to her side. It appeared again near the feet, crossed the space between them, and moved up the other side. It snaked the length of Nancy’s right arm, sawed through the rope.Dukane stepped to the door.The women’s feet wobbled slightly. Then they rose from the ground and the bodies jerked in to motion. Gunfire broke the silence. Bullets kicked up dust around the dragging bodies. Dark matter burst from Jan’s back. Her head jumped, pieces exploding away.Dukane threw open the door.The bodies bounced up the low stoop. More bullets smacked into Jan, splashing her like pebbles striking water.Then they were inside. Dukane kicked the door shut. As slugs pounded through it, he lunged toward the raised feet of the women. The feet began to drop. He swung his pistol, but it swept through empty air. Scott raced to help. Dukane’s head snapped sideways. He staggered and dropped to his knees. Scott clutched his own belly. As he doubled, his shirt collar and belt jerked taut. He was lifted high off the floor.Lacey fired twice at the space beneath him.Then he was slammed down. The tile floor pounded aside his hands and knees. His forehead hit with a thud.Dukane shot over him. Four bullets hit the far wall, blasting holes in the plaster, knocking down a framed oil of a desert sunset. He came forward slowly, in a crouch, his head turning as if he thought he might see a target. The gun suddenly flew from his twisted hand. He grunted as the front of his pants dented in. His nose jerked sideways, spouting blood. Throwing himself forward, he reached out and fell.Lacey fired above his back. Her bullet smacked the wall. She aimed over his head and fired again. His head jumped. For a sinking instant, she thought she’d hit Dukane. Then the head snapped down, thudding the floor. He went limp.Lacey pushed herself to her feet. She stood with her back to the wall, pistol forward. Dukane and Scott both lay motionless on the red tile floor. She breathed hard. Her heart felt ready to explode.“My turn,” Hoffman said.From the left.She shot at his voice. Splinters burst from the hall door frame.“Time for fun and games.”She aimed again, then hesitated, realizing the sixshot pistol held only one more live cartridge. If she missed with this one…She knew a target she couldn’t miss.With a quaking hand, she raised the pistol and pressed its muzzle to her head.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Go on,” said the voice in front of Lacey. “I’ll fuck you anyway. Only thing is, you won’t get a chance to enjoy it.”She tried to force her finger to move, to squeeze the stiff, curved metal of the trigger just a bit, just a quarter inch, just enough. But part of her mind resisted. She wanted to live. She gazed at Scott’s unmoving body, and didn’t want to leave him. She wanted to see him smile again, to hear his laughter, to feel his gentle arms around her. Even if only one more time. As she stared at Scott, he moved one hand slightly.She thumbed back the pistol’s hammer.“Adios,” said Hoffman.She stabbed the pistol forward, felt its muzzle stop against Hoffman, and jerked the trigger.“Bitch!” he shrieked through the gun’s roar.Something clubbed her face, knocking her head back against the wall. Her hand stung. The pistol fell. Another blow struck her face. As she sagged, a hand clutched her throat. It held her to the wall. The neck of her tank top jerked out. The fabric stretched taut, popped, and tore down the front. Pain erupted in her breasts as he grabbed them and tugged her to the floor.Her knees pounded the tile. He forced her backward. Down beside Nancy. Beside Jan. She tried to raise her head, but had no strength. Warm fluid spilled onto her legs as the gym shorts were yanked down. Hoffman’s blood! Her pan ties were ripped away.Where’s Scott? her mind screamed. He’s alive. She’d seen him move. Why doesn’t he stop this!She gasped in agony as Hoffman shoved into her. He rammed hard, one hand gripping her breast as if to keep her from being shoved over the floor by the force of his thrusts. A wetness splattered her shoulder as he plunged.She should’ve…why hadn’t she pulled the damn trigger on herself and ended it? Better that than…He pushed her head sideways. As he chewed and sucked the side of her neck, she saw Jan’s face inches away from her own. The blank, staring eyes. The flap of dark flesh hanging off her cheek. The torn lips baring her broken teeth.Dead.Better this. Hoffman grunting and slobbering, twisting her skin, battering her insides with his vile organ. Better this than like Jan.She lowered her gaze to the wide, blinking eyes of Nancy. They were filled with terror, but alive.Where’s Scott!Hoffman’s weight was on her now, crushing her chest, his mouth mashing her lips, suffocating her as he pounded down with his pelvis. Then he was rigid. Lacey felt his jerking throb inside her, the spurt of fluid.He lay on top of her, breathing heavily. At last, his weight lifted. She felt his organ slide out.She raised her head enough to see Scott and Dukane still unconscious on the floor.“Guess what’s next,” Hoffman hissed.Lacey shut her eyes and said nothing.He grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet. “One guess, cunt.” He paused. “No? Well, just watch and see.”The door flew open behind Lacey. A hand squeezed the back of her neck. Another clutched between her legs. She was lifted off her feet and hurled outside.She hit the ground hard, tumbling, gasping as gravel and cactus tore her skin. Then she lay still and awaited the hail of bullets.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Dukane’s head throbbed with fire. He lay motionless, feeling the floor under him, wondering what had happened. Slowly, he remembered. Guilt hit him like a club.What have I done!He forced himself to open one eye. The living room was bright with sunlight. Nearby was the sprawled body of Scott, hands cuffed behind him.Dukane was tied with electrical cord. As he struggled to free himself, he heard a quiet sob.“Scott?” he whispered.The body rolled over. “Matt?” His face was wet with tears. “I thought you were dead.”“Where’s Hoffman?”“I…I don’t know. He took Nancy into the bedroom a few minutes ago. Probably in there. Matt, Lacey’s…” He choked back a sob. “Lacey’s gone.”“Where?”Scott shook his head. “I came to…asked Hoffman. He just laughed.”“Shit.”“Oh God, Matt…”“Take it easy.” He jerked his hands free. Grimacing as pain cut into his head like a lance, he rolled onto his side and untied the knotted cord at his feet. He scanned the room, and flinched. In the rocking chair facing the broken front window sat Jan. The shotgun rested over the sill, aiming outside.“Beau Geste,” Scott muttered.“Maybe the shotgun’s loaded.” Dukane forced himself to stand. He took one step.A tinny, amplified voice said, “We want Hoffman. You’ve got five minutes. Bring him out, and we’ll let you go. If not, you’ll all die. The girl first.”“Lacey,” Scott whispered.Dukane rushed to the window. As he reached for the shotgun, he looked out.He saw Lacey. A hundred yards away. Sprawled across the hood of the Rolls Royce. Her arms and legs were outstretched and tied.A dozen men and women stood near the car, watching as a woman lashed her once with a thin, golden chain.The woman was naked. Glossy, blonde hair draped her back. Her gold arm bands glinted sunlight.Laveda!In spite of the heat, gooseflesh prickled Dukane’s skin.Lacey’s quiet gasp of pain came through the silence as the chain struck again.Dukane grabbed the double-barreled shotgun. He broke it open. The chambers were empty. Turning from the window, he looked for other weapons. The pistols were nowhere in sight. He quietly closed the breach.“Four minutes,” the distant voice announced.Dukane hurried to Scott. He fished a key from his pocket and knelt to unlock the cuffs.“Is it Lacey?”“Yes.”“Oh God.”“Come on.” Dukane tiptoed into the hallway, Scott close behind him. The bathroom door stood open. The bedroom door was shut. Almost.He stepped quietly toward it. Stopped.From inside came muffled grunting sounds, the creak of bedsprings.Nancy lay on the bed, her sweatslick body pounding against the mattress, arms stretched overhead, breasts oddly mashed, legs wide open and twitching, the lips of her vagina spread far apart like an open, sucking mouth. Dukane heard the slap of flesh, and wet, smacking sounds.“Three minutes,” announced the amplified voice.Dukane shouldered open the door. He ran for the bed, reversing the shotgun, raising it high by its barrels.Nancy’s wet eyes looked up at him. She turned her head away as he swung the shotgun down.It stopped before hitting her, stopped six inches above her face, stopped with a crashing thud like a coconut hurled against concrete. The stock of the shotgun split on impact. Teethmarks appeared in Nancy’s cheek—empty, ragged holes that quickly filled with blood.Scott dived onto her. He groped above her left arm, grabbed, snapped a handcuff in place, closed the other bracelet around his own wrist.“Got him!” Scott cried.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“You have two minutes,” said the man with the megaphone.Even as he spoke, the thin chain twirled over the head of the woman beside Lacey, its gold links flashing sunlight, and whistled down. She cried out as it cut fire across her breasts. A smile trembled on the woman’s lips. Her nipples stood erect on her sweaty breasts.She’s getting off, Lacey thought.It must’ve been at her command that the rifles hadn’t opened up on Lacey, that instead the Rolls had come for her. She’d watched it approach, too frightened to move, thinking it’s dead, Dukane got it with a Molotov cocktail, how can it be coming? It bore down on her, its grill blinding in the sunlight. She thought it might crush her into the gravel, but it slipped sideways and its black front tire missed by inches. A door flew open. She was dragged inside the chilly, air-conditioned car.Two men held her across their laps, pawing her as the car sped away.The chain whipped down, lashing her belly.The woman was breathing hard. But not from the exertion. She licked her lips, and struck again. Lacey jerked rigid as the chain cut her thighs.It was the woman who ordered her tied to the car’s hood. The sunbaked metal had scorched her, but the pain of the burned flesh faded when the whipping started.The chain whished down, biting into her shoulder and breast.A man suddenly threw himself onto her, licking the blood from her breast.The woman lashed him. “Not yet!” she snapped.Others jerked him away.“One minute,” said the man with the megaphone.“They won’t come,” said a stocky, red-faced man.The chain slashed her belly.“I did not expect them to come,” the woman said in a trembling voice. “They threw her out. She’s ours.”“Will we drink?” asked a voice.“When I am done with her.” Again, the chain whipped down.Lacey bucked as it tore her.“The dagger.”A teenaged girl in a bikini and Dodger cap handed a knife to her. Lacey stared at its thin, tapering blade.“The river flows,” said the woman.“The river is red,” chanted the others.“The river flows!”“Flows from the heart.”“The river…”“They’re coming out!” a man cried.Lifting her head, Lacey stared over her torn body. Dukane and Scott were out of the house, walking slowly forward, tugging at the open space between them.She glanced at the woman, saw a fierce smile on her face.“Tell the snipers not to shoot. I want all three alive.”A man spoke over his megaphone, ordering everyone to hold fire.On both sides of the car, men and women lowered their weapons.Lacey gazed at Scott, watched him struggle to hold his invisible, silent captive. The pain of her wounds was forgotten as gratitude and despair brought tears to her eyes.They’re doing this for me, she realized.Sacrificing themselves.If only she’d had the courage to end her life back at the house when she had the chance…They were thirty yards away.“Go back!” she yelled, but she knew it was too late.The men kept coming, jerking and swaying as if the beast between them fought to free himself.Twenty yards.She could see the grim, determined look on Scott’s face.Ten yards.A low laugh came from the woman. “Bring him Tome,” she called. “I have waited a long time for Samuel Hoffman. And for you, Matthew Dukane. This will be a great day for me.”“Every dog has its day,” Dukane said. One side of his mouth curled into a smile.He and Scott sprang apart, diving sideways and rolling through the dust. Four pistols appeared from behind them. They stopped rolling, and their gunfire stuttered through the stillness in a deafening roar.Bodies whirled and flopped. Dirt exploded around Scott and Dukane as their fire was returned. Screams tore through the din. A man clutched his belly and sat down hard. The ball cap and bloody matter flew from the head of the teenaged girl as she fired at Dukane. He tossed a pistol aside and kept firing his automatic. A man spun, crashed into the side of the car, and fell.Dukane yelled as he was hit.Scott rose to one knee, not even glancing at him, shoving a fresh magazine into the handle of his.45. Gravel kicked up beside his foot, but he didn’t flinch. He worked the slide and resumed firing.Dukane was on his knees, his left arm hanging limp, firing with his right.A man raced forward, shooting. A bullet slammed him down.Abruptly, there was silence.Jerking her head from side to side, Lacey saw no one still standing. On both sides of the car lay crumpled bodies.Scott ran forward in a crouch. Far off, a rifle cracked. Dirt spouted in front of him.As Dukane dropped and crawled forward, Scott dived to the ground near a fat man. He grabbed the man’s rifle. It had a telescopic sight. Settling himself in a prone position, he aimed toward the far left of the house.A distant shot. The top of a cactus near Dukane exploded. Scott fired, then made a thumbs-up sign at Dukane. He swung the barrel to his right.Dukane scurried forward. He reached the front of the car, and began to cut the rope at Lacey’s foot.A shot thunked the grill.Scott fired. “Watch it,” he called. “Still one out there.”Dukane freed Lacey’s left hand, then rushed around the rear of the car and came up at her other side. As he sliced through the rope, a shot rang out. The bullet smacked the windshield inches above her head.He scurried to the front.Scott fired. “Got him!” he yelled. “That oughta be it.”Lacey sat up. As soon as her right foot was loose, she scooted off the hood. Scott, hurrying toward her, passed the rifle to Dukane and pulled off his shirt. He draped the shirt over Lacey’s back. Holding her by the shoulders, he looked down at her torn body. “Oh God, Lacey,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”With blurry, tear-filled eyes, she stared at his tormented face. She kissed him. Then she managed a smile. “Who do you think you are, James Bond?”“Max Carter and Charlie Dane.”Dukane came up behind him. “I think I deserve a kiss, too.”He got one. Lacey hugged him, ignoring the pain of her own wounds, and kissed his dry lips.“You guys are nuts, coming out like that.”“The best defense…” Dukane said.Lacey gasped, her joy suddenly turning to cold fear. “Hoffman! You let him…” She staggered back, clutching the shirt tight to hide her nakedness, looking behind her as if she might somehow see him sneaking up.“Hoffman isn’t with us,” Dukane said.“I know. You let him…”“He’s still in the house,” Scott interrupted. “Securely handcuffed in the bathroom.”“You mean…?”“Pretty good act, huh?”“Now,” said Dukane, “how about attending to my arm before I bleed to death?”“Oh,” Scott muttered. “Forgot about that.”“I didn’t.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The bullet had smashed a bone in Dukane’s forearm. Scott broke the stock off a rifle, and made ungainly splints from it. He used strips of Dukane’s shirt to bandage the wound and lash the splints into place.“We’d better get you to a hospital,” he said. “Both of you, and Nancy.”“All in good time. See if the car works.”Scott helped Lacey inside.“Right with you,” Dukane said.As Scott climbed into the driver’s seat, Dukane wandered from body to body, crouching over several of the women for a closer inspection.Scott turned the ignition key. The car came to life, blowing cool, welcome air onto Lacey.“What’s he looking for?” she asked.Scott shook his head.Finally, Dukane climbed into the backseat. In each hand, he held a large gold band, the bands Lacey had seen on the arms of the woman who’d whipped her. “I know I hit the bitch,” he said. “Saw her go down.”“Who?”“Laveda. But she’s not here now. Just her damn jewelry. Did you see anyone run off?”“No,” Scott said. “I thought we got them all.”“Okay. Let’s pick up Hoffman and Nancy, and get the hell out of here.”The car sped forward, bumping over the rough earth, down a gradual slope, and up a rise to the flat area in front of the house. Scott turned off the engine. “You can wait here if you want,” he told Lacey.She didn’t want to be left alone. “I’ll go in,” she said.Scott pulled the key from the ignition and stepped out. Lacey opened her door. Stifling heat wrapped her like a blanket as she climbed out. She glimpsed the body of the man under the broken window, hammer still clutched in his outflung hand.She entered the house behind Scott. Dukane followed and shut the door. The house was silent.“Nancy?” Dukane called.No answer.He suddenly broke into a run, vanishing down the hall. Scott and Lacey rushed after him.The bedroom was empty.“Nancy?”From the closet came a muffled sob.Dukane jerked its door open.Nancy sat crouched in a corner, half-hidden behind hanging dresses. Her black hair clung to her face with sweat. Though the room was hot and she wore jeans and a wool shirt, Lacey could see her shivering.“It’s all right,” Dukane told her. “It’s over. Everything’s fine.”“No,” she gasped, batting away his hands as he reached for her. Her wide eyes blinked. “Not over. Wanta hide.”From behind them came a scream that washed over Lacey like a vile, chilling flood. It was the scream of a man.“Get Nancy out of here,” Scott snapped, and ran after Dukane.Lacey dropped to her knees. She tried to grab the girl’s flailing hands. “Stop!” she cried. Then she clutched a foot and dragged Nancy from the closet. She pulled the girl to her feet, tugged her into the hall.From there, she saw Dukane slam the bathroom door, shutting himself and Scott inside.Screams filled her ears as she led Nancy through the living room. “Wait in the car,” she said.Then she raced to the hall.The bathroom door flew open. Dukane staggered backward through it, and fell. The wooden hilt of a butcher knife stood upright in his belly.As she ran toward him, she heard a whup like the sound of a windflapped canvas. Fire exploded through the doorway.“Scott!” she shrieked.The fire lapped her body, forcing her away from the door. She shielded her eyes and gazed into the inferno. Near the floor, she saw a hole in the fire as if a tunnel had been dug in the flames—a writhing tunnel shaped like a man.A passage opened in the blaze. It rushed toward her. Smashed her aside. She tripped over Dukane. As she slammed the far wall, she saw a flaming figure race down the hallway, arms waving, hair ablaze.Scott? She ran after it. As it lurched across the living room, she realized she could see through it: the fire blazed around a hollow shell. It fell against a window. The curtains caught fire. As it lurched out the front door, it turned and Lacey glimpsed its fire-wrapped face, its breasts.She rushed back to the bathroom.“Scott!” she cried out. “Scott!”The wall of fire roared.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Lacey circled the block twice, watching for strangers, then killed the headlights and steered the Firebird up the narrow driveway to her garage. She put it into the garage, and entered her house by the back door.The lights were off. She left them that way.Searching the dark house, she remembered how she and Cliff had gone through it that night so long ago—only a few days ago. They’d found no one then. Lacey found no one now. But she couldn’t be certain she was alone: she could never be sure of that again.Though filthy, she was afraid to use her tub.Though dazed and weary, she was afraid to use her bed.She arranged blankets inside her walkin closet, and lay down there. It reminded her of the nest in the hallway that she’d shared with Scott.Thoughts of Scott swirled through her mind as she tried to sleep. Other thoughts, too. Bad ones that made her shake.Three times during the night, she heard sounds in the house that made her sweat and hold her breath. Afraid to investigate, she lay there rigid until exhaustion forced her to fall limp and gasp for air.Once, as she drifted off, the closet door swung silently open. The dark figure of a man knelt over her. She quaked with terror until he spoke.“It’s just me,” he said.“Scott?”“I had a hard time finding you. What’re you hiding from?”“Everything.”“Don’t be afraid.”“Oh Scott, I thought you were dead.”Then he came down and kissed her, and his charred lips crumbled and filled her mouth with ashes.She bolted upright, gasping, and found herself alone in the closet. Its door was still shut.After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed open the door. She studied the familiar, night shadows of her bedroom, then crawled over the carpet to the alarm clock. Four thirty.Time to begin.Lacey tiptoed through the dark silence of the house. She searched cupboards in the kitchen, found what she wanted, and stepped outside.She entered her garage through a side door connecting it to the laundry room. A dim light went on inside the Firebird when she opened its door. Kneeling on the passenger seat, she reached out and drew its keys from the ignition.The Firebird was one of the four cars she’d found after she ran from the burning house and discovered the keys of the Rolls Royce were gone. She and Nancy had dashed up the long entry road, and come upon the cars of the dead people. She’d insisted Nancy take one of them, and leave her.Now, keys in hand, Lacey crawled out of the Firebird. She left its door open for light, and walked over the warm concrete to the trunk. Taking a deep breath, she unlocked it. The lid swung up.As dawn lightened the sky, Lacey twisted off the plastic cap. She raised the bottle to her lips. Its strong fumes made her throat clutch, but she filled her mouth anyway to wash out the other taste—the sour taste of the vomit that had flooded out after the blood.She spat the brandy onto the loose earth at her feet, then upended the bottle. The amber fluid gurgled out, splashing onto the dirt.When it was empty, she tossed it aside. It fell to the grass beside the cellophane package of beans and the knife.She put her clothes back on, covering her blood-spattered nakedness.Then she picked up her shovel. She set it inside the laundry room. Shutting the door, she started for her house.A man stepped around the corner.Numb with fear, she staggered back.The man didn’t move.She gazed at him, at his blackened face and torso, his hairless scalp, his scorched and tattered pants—and recognized the phantom from her nightmares. She pressed trembling hands to her eyes. At the sound of footsteps, she lowered them.He was walking toward her, his sooty hands reaching out.“Thought you’d be glad to see me,” he said. “I know I look like a wreck, but…”“Scott,” she muttered.He clutched her shoulders and drew her against his body. His cracked, dry lips pressed her mouth. She felt the wetness of his tongue. His hands stroked her hair, the sides of her face.“It is you?” she whispered. Scott’s grimy, grinning face blurred as tears filled Lacey’s eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

He guzzled half a bottle of Bud, leaned back on the kitchen chair, and sighed.“That was Hoffman we heard screaming. When Matt and I ran in the bathroom, all we saw was this butcher knife jerking around right above the floor. And the handcuffs shaking. Laveda must’ve made herself invisible when the shooting started. Must’ve had a bean left over from the time she’d gone through the process a year ago.”“She went for Matt. That gave me a chance to douse her with gas and touch her off. The whole gas can went up, though. I thought I was cooked, but I dived out the bathroom window. The fall…it knocked me out cold. Don’t think I was out for long, but by the time I reached the front of the house, I saw you and Nancy running off.”“Why didn’t you yell?”He shook his head and took another gulp of beer. “I figured I could catch up later. The main thing was to get Matt out of the house.”“You went back in?”“Had to. Couldn’t leave him in there. I got to him just before the fire did, dragged him out, patched up his stomach wound the best I could, and threw him into the car. When I drove up the road, you and Nancy were nowhere in sight. I figured you’d be all right, though, so I drove like hell back to Tucson and got him into an emergency room. I didn’t think he’d make it, but he’s a tough son of a bitch. They had him in stable condition by the time I left.”“He’s alive?” Lacey grinned. “Well. What do you know?”“When I got back to the house and couldn’t find you, I suspected you might come back here.”“I didn’t know where else to go.”“Not the greatest hideout in the world.”“I had a plan,” she admitted, and lowered her eyes. Until now, the plan had seemed like her only chance for survival. With Scott sitting across the breakfast table, it seemed ridiculous and perverse. She didn’t want to tell him about it.“In your place,” Scott said, “I might’ve tried the same thing.”“You know?”“I saw the empty brandy bottle out back. And the sack of beans. And where you dug the hole.”“The…the rest of the body’s still in the garage. I found her…near where they’d left their cars. After I sent Nancy away, I…a bean was in the dirt by her mouth. That’s what gave me the idea. If I were invisible, nobody could get me. I tried the bean, but it didn’t make me invisible. So then I put her body in the trunk of a car and…God, it was all burned and crumbly and…”“It was Laveda!”Lacey nodded. “I guess so.”Reaching out, Scott squeezed her hand. “Then it’s over.”That night, he dug up the head. They drove far out in the desert, and poured gasoline over the remains of Laveda. The fire burned for a long time. When it finally dwindled, they dug two holes in the sand and buried the smoldering head a great distance from the body.

RAVE REVIEWS FOR RICHARD LAYMON!

“I’ve always been a Laymon fan. He manages to raise serious gooseflesh.”

—Bentley Little

“Laymon is incapable of writing a disappointing book.”

—New York Review of Science Fiction

“Laymon always takes it to the max. No one writes like him and you’re going to have a good time with anything he writes.”

—Dean Koontz

“If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat!”

—Stephen King

“A brilliant writer.”

—Sunday Express

“I’ve read every book of Laymon’s I could get my hands on. I’m absolutely a longtime fan.”

—Jack Ketchum, Author of Old Flames

“One of horror’s rarest talents.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Laymon is, was, and always will be king of the hill.”

—Horror World

“Laymon is an American writer of the highest caliber.”

—Time Out

“Laymon is unique. A phenomenon. A genius of the grisly and the grotesque.”

—Joe Citro, The Blood Review