Deep Shadow

TWENTY-EIGHT

WHEN KING HEARD A VOICE WHISPERING IN THE shadows of the cypress grove, he figured it was the old man. Gramps had been out there wandering around in the darkness of the swamp, probably lost and scared shitless, and now here he was back again ready to beg for forgiveness. The old fool would expect a share of the gold, too, no doubt—and after he and Perry had done most the work!

The greedy old ass-wipe.

Thinking that caused King to frown, as he pulled the little automatic from his pocket and started toward the tree line that lay beyond the truck and the generator and outside the yellow perimeter of the fire he had been tending. He moved slowly because he didn’t like the idea of straying too far from the fire. He had been piling on the wood, building the thing higher and higher, because who knew what kind of animals were roaming around out there in the blackness of stars and wind and trees.

After what they’d heard—that weird hissing noise—and the size of the thing he’d seen slide into the lake? Man, he couldn’t wait to get back to a decent-sized city.

What King hoped to see before he walked much farther was the old man stumbling out of the shadows too worn out and hurt to be much trouble now. When that happened, he would . . . do what?

King had to think about it. He felt the weight of the pistol in his hand. The pistol was freshly loaded—five rounds in the clip and one in the chamber—and he liked the feel of it, hard and dense in his fingers, and he enjoyed the power it gave him, remembering the way that smart-ass Ford had almost crapped his pants when King had fired a few rounds—three at least—to scare him.

The first time was the best. Just a few inches to the right and the bullet would have gone into Ford’s thigh or pelvis instead of the fender of the pickup truck. King hadn’t intended to come so close—cheap little automatics weren’t accurate—but that’s the way it had happened. Only a few inches, but what a difference it would have made, which caused King to wonder how that would feel actually shooting a man.

It would’ve made a hell of a big difference, King thought. Especially a superior-acting dude who reminded him of that ass-wipe science teacher who’d flunked him, which was why he’d had to take the fucking eighth grade all over again.

Great, King decided, that’s how it would feel to shoot Ford. Maybe it would feel just as good to shoot the mouthy old man. Later, if he had to, he could blame it all on Perry, the born killer.

Why not?

Hanging another murder on Perry would be easy enough if the cops near Orlando had done their work and collected DNA from the body of that girl Perry had stabbed to death after they’d both had some fun with her.

King had played around with the girl, but that’s all. It was Perry who had actually used her while killing her. Judging from the sounds King heard, Perry probably left enough evidence behind to hang himself.

Perry . . . Perry was a problem. King had been thinking about it as he fed the fire. The man had been dangerous from the start, but now he was crazy, too—mean crazy, with an attitude—so maybe it made sense to shoot the old man to sort of get used to what it was like killing a person. Practice made perfect, after all. The part King couldn’t figure out, though, was how could he blame Perry for seven murders if the cops found Perry dead with a bullet in him?

The key to it all, of course, was to end up in Mexico with enough money not to get caught.

As King neared the pickup truck, he stopped and took a flashlight from his pocket—the bright little light he had stolen from Ford’s bag. He touched the switch, pointed the beam at the base of the tree line and began panning slowly, seeing a miniature forest of ferns and those weird-looking cypress roots poking out of the ground . . . And then he saw something that made no sense and he took a couple of steps closer. Lying in weeds near a cypress tree was what looked sort of like the body of a man lying flat, facedown—a young man, maybe, but not the old man—which surprised King and caused him to raise the pistol fast, ready to fire.

That’s when he heard a voice behind him screaming, “King! Help me! Kinnnggggggg!”

King spun toward the lake. It had to be Perry, but it didn’t sound like his voice because the screaming was so wild and shrill, and now King could hear frenzied splashing, too.

He took another quick look at the tree line, where the man’s body lay—if it was a body—immobile in the bright beam of the flashlight. It had to be the old man, he decided. Yeah, that’s who it had to be—Gramps . . . probably almost dead after having groaned for help, which would have explained the whispering he had heard.

King thought, Good!, as he turned and began running toward the lake. The frantic splashing was louder, and now Perry was screaming, “There’s something after me! King! Pull me in . . . King? For God’s sake, help me!”

King was wondering if maybe Ford was trying to drown the whacko son of a bitch, which caused him to relax a little, and he felt even better.

Now King was thinking, I hope he does it.

King had the flashlight on when he got to the shoreline, but the beach fire was bright enough that it cast a flickering, shadowed glow midway across the lake, where he could see the inner tube looking silver in the misty light. The tube was rolling, as if in heavy surf, even though the lake was black and still beneath the stars. But it wasn’t until King froze the scene with his flashlight that he saw what was happening.

It was such a bizarre mix of images that it took a moment for King to separate them in his brain. Perry was on his knees atop the coil of hose, leaning his chest over the inner tube and paddling wildly with his hands, as he continued to scream for help. Floating on the other side of the inner tube was what looked like a log floating high in the water. The log was as long as a tree, but it had a tail that was fanning the water into a froth, which caused the log to hammer against the inner tube over and over as Perry paddled, trying to get back to shore.

At first, King thought that an alligator, maybe, was trying to crawl up onto the log, but then as he moved the light he realized that he was wrong. It wasn’t a log he was seeing and it wasn’t an alligator. It was a huge reptile of some type, with a snake-shaped head and glowing orange eyes. The thing resembled the monitor lizards he’d seen earlier, only this animal was about twenty times bigger.

King thought, Jesus Christ, that’s the thing I saw crawl into the lake, and he began to back away, still watching, because he couldn’t take his eyes off what was happening now.

He watched the creature’s head lift high above the water as its paws tried to find traction on the inner tube, but the tube squirted away when it tried to lift itself close enough to get to Perry. It swam after the inner tube, its tail stirring a smooth wake, and then the same thing happened. This time, Perry stopped clawing at the water long enough to squint into the beam of the flashlight and holler, “King, shoot the fucking thing, goddamn it! Shoot!”

King had the pistol in his hand, but now he slipped it into his pocket as he watched the creature pursue the inner tube. It reminded him of something he’d seen at a beach on Lake Michigan, a Labrador retriever swimming after a beach ball that was too big to get into its mouth.

King cupped one hand to his lips and yelled, “Get out and swim for it!,” hoping his partner would because that would mean the end of him and the end of one more pain-in-the-ass problem.

As he watched, King began to relax again, and he realized that he was smiling. It was sort of fun, as long as that big slimy bastard didn’t come after him, and it only got better when the animal tried something different, this time swimming so fast that its body skated halfway up onto the inner tube, where King could see Perry crouched low, with his hands up, palms out, eyes white and wide in the beam of the flashlight, as he moaned, “Help me, King . . . please.”

The creature lifted its head high and paused for a moment, as if surprised that Perry’s body was right there beneath its claws, and then the glowing eyes blurred as it struck at Perry’s leg three times, so fast that King began walking backward again, as he whispered, “Jesus Christ Aw’mighty.”

Perry was sobbing now, calling, “It bit me! Pull me in, King! The fuckin’ thing just bit me!”

King thought he should say something—give Perry a taste of his own medicine, maybe, by yelling, What-ever—but he didn’t because he realized that he’d been so focused on Perry, he hadn’t noticed something important happening nearby.

There was a man in the water not far from where the inner tube had been anchored. He was swimming fast in the darkness, using long, clean strokes, headed for the shoreline near the pickup truck.

It was Ford. The ass-wipe wasn’t wearing all his heavy scuba gear, either, which suggested that he was trying to sneak off on his own—probably carrying a bunch more gold coins somewhere on him, too.

King pulled the pistol from his pocket and started running. He didn’t like Ford—hell, he despised the man—but Perry had been right when he’d said there was something quiet and scary about the professor-looking dude. King didn’t want to have to face the man, not just the two of them, alone on dry land.

As King sprinted along the shore, there was something else he realized, judging from the direction Ford was headed. He had to beat Ford to the generator, where his idiot partner, Perry, had left the Winchester unattended.