Creepers

44

"Is it… Are you…" Tod lowered his goggles, as if convinced they made him see things that weren't real. He didn't seem puzzled that Balenger, Vinnie, Cora, and Amanda were free of their bonds. Nor did he look fearful that all four might be able to overpower him before he could defend himself. What he did look was relieved.

"Thank God." He plodded from the weight of the gold coins in his knapsack and pockets. He backed from the stairwell, gaping at it. "We're gonna need to stick together. Need all the help we can get."

"Are you hurt?" Balenger asked. "There's blood-"

"Not mine." The sound of rain made Tod frown toward the howling darkness beyond the open door. "No. Jesus. Gotta close it. Gotta barricade it again. Hurry. No time. Get it shut. Now. I'll guard the stairs. I'll shoot anybody who comes up the stairs."

But the candlelight revealed that the slide on the pistol was back. Its magazine was empty.

"Give it to me," Balenger said.

"Need it."

"You fired all the rounds in it."

"What?"

"You emptied it."

"Emptied it?"

"Vinnie! Amanda!" Cora shouted. "Help with the door!"

They reclosed it and piled the furniture.

"The spare magazine," Balenger asked Tod. "Where is it?"

Tod kept gazing trancelike toward the stairwell.

"Give me the damned gun." Balenger twisted it from his hand, amazed at how things had changed. A while ago, Tod would have shot him dead for even looking as if he'd try for the gun. Balenger found the spare magazine in Tod's belt. With military expertise, he dropped the empty magazine, shoved in the loaded one, and pressed the gun's release lever so the slide rammed forward and chambered a round. It gave him a moment's confidence to be armed again.

Balenger aimed toward the stairs. "What happened?"

"Not sure," Tod said. He twitched. "Oh, I know what happened all right. I'm just not sure how it was done."

"Where are your buddies?"

"We went down the stairs."

"I know that. Tell me about-"

"We kept going down and down. Around and around. Turning and turning. At each level, there was a passageway like up here. But the passageways got longer."

"Sure. Each level below us gets bigger and wider. For Carlisle to eavesdrop, he had to extend the passageways farther to reach all the rooms."

"Longer and longer," Tod said. "Finally, we reached the bottom."

"Vinnie," Balenger said. "You and Cora and Amanda take off his knapsack. Dump the coins. Fill the knapsack with as much equipment as you can stuff into it. The rest we'll carry."

"But there wasn't a door," Tod said. "We couldn't find a door." His facial tattoos were almost hidden by blood. "No matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find one. We ran all the way to the end of the bottom corridor. It went on forever. We still couldn't find a door. But at the end, we found something else."

"What?"

"A body."

Amanda made a noise in her throat.

"She'd been dead a long time," Tod said.

"She?"

"A dress. The body wore a dress. An old-fashioned dress. But she looked like a mummy. That's how long she'd been dead. All dried up, her eye sockets hollow. Hard to tell with the green from the goggles, but I think her hair was blond. Like hers." Tod indicated Amanda. "The corpse was sitting in a corner, like she'd run there and got tired and sat down to rest and never woke up. She even had her purse in her lap."

Amanda's throat made that noise again.

"We ran back to the staircase. Mack was so panicked, he raised the crowbar to knock a hole in the wall so we could get out. But before he could swing it, somebody pounded on the other side."

"Ronnie," Amanda said.

"I could see where the wall trembled. I fired at it. Then the pounding was somewhere else, and I fired at that. Suddenly, the pounding was all along the wall, and I fired and fired. Mack and JD ran up the stairs. I followed. Turning and turning. Around and around. Above me, I heard a scream. Mack. He fell toward me. His legs were split open. His blood sprayed like it came from a hose. He dropped through the space between the stairs and the railing. 'What cut him?' JD yelled. I didn't have a chance to say anything. 'The room with the vault!' JD yelled. 'We know how to get out of that room!' He raced up the stairs. All of a sudden, he was falling. His legs were split open. His blood was spraying. I thought I'd lost my mind. I wanted to run, but I warned myself I had to slow down, to find whatever was on the stairs. So I inched up, waving the gun in front of me, and that's when I touched it."

"Touched…?"

"A wire strung across the staircase. Tight. Thin. Even with the goggles, I could hardly see it. I felt it with the gun. Then I touched it with my finger. Jesus, it was so sharp, all I needed was a little nudge for it to cut me."

"Razor wire," Balenger said.

"Maybe I did lose my mind. I eased under the wire. I inched up the stairs, waving the gun, searching for other wires."

"You left Mack and JD alive down there?"

"Believe me, the way they were bleeding, they weren't going to live long."

From the stairwell, far below, someone screamed.

"It sounds like one of them lived longer than you expected," Balenger said.

Another scream.

"We've all lost our minds," Cora said.

"But how did Ronnie-"

"He followed you down," Balenger said.

"He was behind us on the stairs?" Tod looked startled.

"When you reached the bottom, he rigged the wire above you. Then he used a hidden door to enter the main part of the hotel. He pounded on the wall to panic you into running upstairs."

Tod pulled out a cell phone.

"What are you doing?" Vinnie asked.

"Calling my brother in Atlantic City. He'll tell the police. He'll get help."

"You finally decided going to prison was better than facing Ronnie?'' Cora asked in disgust.

"My brother'll save me." Tod finished pressing numbers and shoved the phone to his ear. "My brother'll get the police here and…" Listening, he moaned. "No. No. No."

"What's wrong?"

Thunder rumbled.

"Out of service!'' Tod said. "The fucking storm's interfering with the phone!"

"Guess you should have called a little sooner, huh?" Vinnie said, his face red with fury. "We ought to tape you to the chair and let Ronnie do what he wants to you."

"But you won't.''

"You're sure of that? You think I'm not pissed off at you enough to-"

"You can't afford to. We're pals now," Tod said. "Don't you get it? We need to stick together. You need all the help you can get."

Vinnie told Balenger, "We stuffed as much equipment as we could into the knapsack. What didn't fit we hooked to our belts. The police-report file is still in the slot in the knapsack. I guess they didn't know it was there. Otherwise, they'd have dumped that, also. You want a souvenir?" Vinnie gave him a coin.

Balenger held it, feeling its weight, its thickness, its perfect edges. A magnificent eagle was on one side. On the other, a buxom Lady Liberty carried a torch. The gold seemed to glow. TWENTY DOLLARS, IN GOD WE TRUST. "That's a great word: 'souvenir.' It means we might live to remember this. Here's hoping." Balenger kissed it and put it in a pocket. "Maybe it'll bring us luck."

Cora pointed. "This is the equipment we Jeff for you."

Balenger put on the remaining tool belt. He hooked a walkie-talkie to it, along with the hammer and a half-full water bottle. "Where's the crowbar?"

"I told you Mack had it," Tod said.

"You damned stupid…" Balenger studied the air meters and left them. They were luxuries now. "Here's something else we can leave." He held up the water pistol. "Must have thrown it away in favor of carrying more coins."

"Give it to me." Cora raised it to her nostrils, as if hoping it retained her dead husband's scent, but the disgusted shake of her head indicated that all she smelled was vinegar.

Amanda looked frozen.

"Here. Take my Windbreaker." Vinnie put it around her.

She zipped it over her nightgown, looking grateful for the warmth. The Windbreaker was long enough to cover her hips.

"Ready?" Balenger asked.

"For what?" Tod said. "There's nothing we can do."

"We can take the high ground."

"High ground. What are you talking about?"

"The penthouse." Balenger picked up his hard hat where Tod had thrown it. Its light was out. He flicked the switch. Nothing happened. "You piece of shit, you broke the headlamp."

"Penthouse?" Tod said, appalled.

"I can't." Amanda shuddered. "That's where Ronnie takes me."

"There are other hidden staircases. I'm sure of it," Balenger said, bitterly examining the useless lamp on his hard hat. "They all lead to the penthouse. Ronnie can't guard them all. We might be able to find a staircase that gets us out of here before he realizes we're gone."

"Yeah, and we might pick one that leads us straight to him," Tod said.

"Your way, he knows where we are, and he comes for us."

"We've got a gun."

"With only twelve rounds left, thanks to you. And how do you know Ronnie doesn't have a gun, also?"

Tod looked sick.

"You should dump those coins." Balenger pointed at Tod's bulging pockets. "The weight will slow you down."

"No way am I tossing that much money."

"Vinnie and Cora have headlamps. Where's your flashlight?"

"Lost it."

"Fucking great. Which leaves this one that Mack or JD dropped so he could carry more coins." Vinnie indicated the flashlight holstered to his belt.

"Not much light. We'd better blow out these candles and take them with us," Balenger said. "And something else."

When he was taped to the chair with the pillowcase over him, waiting for Ronnie to cut off his head, Balenger had told himself that there couldn't be anything more -nightmarish he'd be forced to suffer. But the pattern of his life made him realize he was wrong. Things got worse. They always got worse. And what he needed to do now proved it.

He turned toward the professor's headless body on the sofa. Between Conklin's legs, the headlamp continued to glow up through the sheet. Seized by revulsion, Balenger lifted the edge of the blood-soaked sheet and felt under it. His trembling hands touched the professor's beard. With greater revulsion, he pried the chin strap free and tugged the hard hat away, feeling the professor's head tilt. He pulled the hat from under the sheet and almost wept at the blood on it.

"Sorry, Bob," he said. "I'm so sorry."

He put the lamp on his head and felt his muscles cramp. "Let's go."