Slippin' into Darkness

11:47 P.M.

“You hear that?” Derwin asked.

“Yeah,” Griz said.

“Sounded like gunshots.”

“Yeah,” Griz agreed.

“Or a car backfiring,” Todd put in.

“Shut up,” Bat said. “Whatever it is, it’s got nothing to do with us.”

“But if someone calls the cops,” Todd offered.

“No one’s gonna call the cops.” Bat sighed. “Think about it. There’s a closed drive-in on the other side of the road. This cemetery is as big as the fucking Oakland Coliseum. If anyone heard anything, they’ll just ignore it. And even if they don’t, you think the cops come running every time someone fires a gun? In this town?”

“But Bat- “

“Shut the fuck up! If Austin hears us, this whole thing will go bad. Now stake out this place like I told you. Together we’re sitting ducks.” Bat whirled, moped off, and hid behind a tombstone. He was sweating now, and his heart pounded like a little bongo drum locked in his chest. And his stomach…man oh man, his stomach.

Bat lay Ozzy Austin’s. 45 on the grass and fished a roll of Tums from his pocket. Crunched three of the things. Vague fruit flavors masked the sour taste in his mouth.

Jesus, sitting here in the dark with three morons. Hiding behind tombstones, waiting for Austin’s car to show.

Maybe Austin would be smarter than that. Bat was counting on pissing him off, forcing him to rush after them like a wildman on a mission. If Austin stopped long enough to think things through- No way. Ozzy Austin wouldn’t do that. The guy was a lunatic. He would want his bitch back. He would want Amelia Peyton right now, so he could get on with whatever crazy game they were-

A whisper next to his ear: “Hey…Bat.”

Bat spit flecks of Tums. Todd was standing there, his silhouette barely discernible. Had to be Todd because the silhouette was too short for Derwin and too skinny for Griz. “Don’t go sneaking around like that,” Bat whispered. “Everyone’s jumpy. You’ll get your ass shot. Now get back to that tombstone and keep your eyes peeled.”

Two metal circles pressed against Bat’s left cheek.

Tight circles, a cold figure-eight.

Bat smelled gun oil. Jesus! A double-barreled shotgun!

He made a grab for Austin’s pistol. His hand closed over the scored grip. His finger found the trigger.

But by the time he pulled it he was already dead, and the shot he fired was little more than a reflex.

The bullet dug its own grave in the green grass.

The bucking shotgun had punched a hot knife of pain through his shoulder, but he hardly noticed it; he had seen what the shotgun did to Bat Bautista and that image was much more powerful than the pain.

The white marble tombstone was now slick and black. A gory river flowed where Bat Bautista’s head had been. Damned impressive. Bat Bautista down so easy. The hot metal smell of the weapon drifted to his nostrils, along with the aroma of blood and singed meat.

The night surrounded him. The sky was masked with concrete clouds. The clouds wiped at the moon, and in an instant all was black.

It was as if he were nowhere.

But he wasn’t alone. The others were coming. He could hear them.

He moved, rolling low, staying quiet.

A sharp click. The sound of a revolver cocking.

“Oh shit!” someone said.

“Austin’s here,” came another voice, a voice he recognized as Derwin MacAskill’s. “Be careful, Griz.”

“Damn right…where’s Todd?”

“Who the fuck knows?”

He smiled from his hiding place. They couldn’t see him. They had walked right past him, one on each side. He was with them in the dark, and they couldn’t find him.

The coffin lid was slick, but he held tight to the shotgun and kept his balance, his arms rising slowly over the lip of the grave. He propped his right elbow on the grass while his left index finger lay steady on the trigger. Griz and Derwin stared at him, but they didn’t see him. He pressed the smooth wooden butt of the gun to his shoulder, smelled furniture polish, and almost laughed.

“You check over there,” Derwin said.

“Uh-uh,” Griz said. “I don’t think that we should split up.”

Down in the grave, he thought about making the obvious joke. He didn’t.

But he did fire the shotgun, and twin loads of number 0 buckshot split them in half.

The green halogen light was the light of heaven. No it wasn’t.

Steve came to in the mortuary parking lot.

The son of a bitch. Waiting for him like that. Waiting until he got out of the car.

The memory sizzled through Steve’s brain: Turning from the Dodge, seeing the gun in the unreal green-white light, and the man holding it… Too late… The first bullet clips his left shoulder as he makes a grab for his own revolver, and his arm goes dead before he can get it out of the holster… Reaching across his body with his right hand, anything to get his gun, but the revolver is thundering in the mystical light of heaven, bullets slamming him… And he’s lying on the trunk of the Dodge just that fast, and Frankie Valli in his incarnation as a disco superstar is in his head singing about feelin’ the rush like the rollin’ of the thunder, spinnin’ his head around and takin’ his body under… Oh what a night, didn’t even have time to blink and there’s no air in his lungs and the gunman is leaning over him now, digging through his pockets, grabbing the 16mm loop and the shotgun shells while he can only wheeze… He tries to make his left arm move, tries to push the man away, but the man is already gone and…

And The Six Million Dollar Man is now fully conscious. But he is not quite right beneath his Kevlar vest, and hot transmission fluid leaks from the hole in his mechanical shoulder. I’ll have to pay a visit to Dr. Rudy Wells down at The Six Million Dollar Man Repair Shop when this is over, he tells himself.

He grabs his revolver with his right hand and it feels like an alien thing, because he is left-handed.

He tells himself that tonight he will be right-handed. He is a Six Million Dollar Man, a cyborg, and his brain can control every muscle in his body.

He moves forward.

And barely avoids falling flat on his face.

Shutterbug climbed out of April’s grave-clothes muddy, the shotgun warm in his hands-and saw Todd Gould running like the track star he once was.

Clouds slid away from the moon. The night sky powdered from charcoal to bleached ash, and then Todd noticed Shutterbug and realized in one horrible instant that he was running in the wrong direction.

An awful little shriek escaped Todd Gould’s lips. His hands were empty. He had lost his gun, so he turned and reversed course, slipping on the grass.

Todd was still fast. His arms pumped in the smooth rhythm of a natural athlete. His feet were flying.

And he was bearing down on the fuchsia-colored police tape.

Shutterbug laughed. He laughed so hard that he couldn’t shoulder the shotgun. Todd broke the tape. Shutterbug cheered.

A pistol crack sounded in the distance. Todd Gould collapsed, his corpse skidding across the damp grass like a kid riding a water slide.

Shutterbug’s laughter caught in his throat. The shotgun was suddenly very heavy in his hands.

The A-Squad had four members. They were all dead. It was supposed to be over.

“I warned you. I told you not to cross me. I’m coming.”

It was Steve Austin’s voice, but it couldn’t be. Shutterbug had gunned him down in back of the mortuary.

The sound of thunder erupted behind him. Shutterbug whirled, gasping. Not thunder. The sound came from the grave. From April Destino’s coffin. Something was in there, pounding to get out.

Shutterbug backed away, gripping the shotgun. He couldn’t see Austin. It was so dark, and he didn’t know where to look, and-

“You’ve really disappointed me,” Austin said, his voice no more than a whisper.

A sharp click sounded as Austin readied his revolver. Hollow thumps rippled from April’s grave as Shutterbug passed by. He was going to unravel. He knew it. Right there in the cemetery, he was going to unravel.

No.

Jumping through the French doors in his kitchen, Shutterbug hadn’t received a single cut. Not bad, when he considered the fate of the FBI agent. He hadn’t been wounded in his war with the A-Squad, either, and that was equally amazing in light of the firepower he had faced.

But there was only so much he could stand. Gone-to-seed jocks invading his house. Cops bullying him at his store. FBI agents smiling at him. Shelly Desmond stealing his money. Her pyromaniac boyfriend torching his house.

Barely escaping through the damn French doors.

Twelve hundred bucks worth of doors broken, then burned. Running all the way to the camera shop, just so he could get his old man’s service revolver and the van he used for business.

The FBI agent was dead; Shutterbug had watched her basic black outfit ignite. She was toast. But, driving around in the van, Shutterbug had realized that his other enemies still lived. And all of them were within striking distance.

He had gone to Steve Austin’s house, determined to silence him for good, only to find Austin leaving via his rattletrap Dodge.

So Shutterbug followed Austin to the mortuary. Cut him down, and he wasn’t so nervous anymore. And then he heard those morons yelling at each other over in the cemetery. He slaughtered three of them and felt that he had dropped a hundred pounds of worry.

And now Austin had eliminated the fourth.

But Shutterbug had eliminated Austin.

This was impossib-

An icy squeal rose from April’s grave-sharp fingernails scoring smooth metal.

“I’m Steve Austin, and I’m coming for you. I’m The Six Million Dollar Man. And I’m Ozzy Austin.” Austin laughed. “I’m Oz…I am The Great amp; Powerful Oz. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

The shotgun was slippery with Shutterbug’s sweat. He wasn’t a shotgun kind of fellow. He knew that. Just as he knew that this was impossible, unreal, like a dream.

Austin chasing him down, an avenging invisible man.

Something trapped in April’s coffin, trying to get out, when he knew that April was dead.

But last night, on the road, April had nearly run him down.

Impossible. This wasn’t a dream, it was a-Shutterbug dropped the shotgun. His fingers scrabbled into his shirt pocket. The old 16mm movie was still there.

Austin had said that the movie was April’s nightmare.

“If you just leave me alone…” Shutterbug said.

He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He dropped the movie into April’s grave, heard it ring against the metal casket, and then he turned and ran into the night.

He ran like a frightened boy in a ghost story.

As fast as his feet could carry him.

He kept running.