Mortal Fear

CHAPTER 40

There is no more threatening sound than silence. It is the symphony of the snake that waits for its prey to step within striking range, of the tiger that stalks the deer. It begins as mere absence of sound, but unrelieved, it can build steadily into a roar that blurs perception to the point of sense blindness. I know that blindness now, sitting with both hands gripping the butt of the Magnum as though it could transport Drewe and me to another dimension, far from this dangerous place.

I count the seconds as rivulets of sweat across my face, as breaths entering and leaving the lungs of my sleeping wife. How long will it take Buckner and his men to get here? Even if they were at the north end of the county, it shouldn’t take more than twenty-five minutes. How many have passed? Five? Ten? Or two? Keep still, I tell myself. No way he’s down there. Kali is dead and Brahma limped out to his plane and got the hell out of here for good. He saw his lover die and -

Two explosions close together smash the silence, rattling the foundation of the house. I jump to my feet, trigger finger quivering, heartbeat loosed from its rhythm.

“Harper?”

I whirl, bringing the gun around with me. Drewe is up on one elbow, her eyes barely open.

“What’s happening?”

“We’re in our bedroom. Lie down. We may be in trouble. We-”

A third explosion shudders through the floorboards.

Drewe’s eyes snap open. “What-?”

An agonized wail like a cat in heat rolls out of the kitchen.

“What was that?” she asks, her voice ragged.

“Two deputies went down into the bomb shelter. Brahma may be down there.”

Her fingers grip my wrist like channel-lock pliers.

“Do you still have that pistol you used to use when I was out of town?” I ask.

She nods. “In my dresser drawer.”

“Which one?” I ask, pulling open the top one.

“That’s it. God, I feel sick. Am I drunk?”

Drewe’s pistol is a tiny Charter Arms.25 automatic Bob gave her when she went to medical school in New Orleans. An oddly inefficient weapon coming from a man like Bob, but I suppose he wanted her to be able to conceal it easily.

“Whiiiite birrrd!” screams a voice that could have come from the pit of hell.

“White bird? What…?”

“He’s calling you,” says Drewe. “He’s saying Harper. Who went down there?”

“Billy Jackson. Jimmy somebody.”

“Harrrper! Heelll meeeee!”

“The sheriff’s on his way,” I tell her, my tone strangely defensive.

She nods quickly. “You can’t go down there.”

This time the wail drags out much longer than before. “I’m bleeeedinn!”

“I told him not to go down there. Damn!”

As Drewe stares at me, willing me to deafness, I realize I’m in a position I’ve seen a hundred times in movies. Seen, and then screamed silently at the hero not to go into the woods or up the attic stairs or wherever any half-intelligent person would know the monster or murderer was waiting. But sitting here now, in the awful silence following those screams, one fact is inescapable: I brought those men here. If I don’t help them, I will carry their lives on my conscience forever. And I’m already carrying too much.

“Aaaaaaaaagghhh!”

“Harper, you can’t do anything for them.”

“I know,” I say softly. My right hand is clenched around the butt of the Magnum with painful force. The sheriff will be here before long. But Billy and his partner could be dead by then, and Brahma vanished into the summer night. Another prolonged shriek of pain reaches the bedroom, fainter this time.

“I’ve got to go.”

“What?” Drewe asks. “No, you don’t! Why do you have to go?”

“I just do.” Because this way it’s over one way or the other. If I kill Brahma-or even if he kills me-I’ll have done the only thing that could possibly expiate my guilt. I start to hand her the.25, then switch and give her the.357. Whatever else I do, I will not walk out of here leaving my wife no more protection than a crappy Saturday night special.

Drewe takes the huge pistol with a kind of narcotized equanimity. I drop the extra shells on the bed. “I want you to get down behind the bed and aim the pistol at the door.”

She rolls over without a word and kneels behind the bed.

“If anyone comes through but me, you start shooting and don’t stop until the gun is empty. You understand?”

She nods soberly. She knows I mean to go, and though she doesn’t want me to, she won’t waste time trying to talk me out of it. The barrel of the.357 comes level with the bed, then rises until its line of fire intersects my chest.

“I’m okay,” she says. “Go.”

Two words echo in my head as I stare through the open pantry at the black hole of the bomb shelter’s open trapdoor. Tunnel rat. Echoing down from years ago, when a one-armed tractor driver told me about his job in Vietnam. First man down every hole. Darkness, damp, stink. Crawling on your belly with a Colt.45 held in front of your face like a crucifix and a prayer on your lips.

The lights in the tunnel should be on, but they’re not. Too late I realize I should have switched off the kitchen lights before opening the trapdoor. I creep close enough to peer over the edge. A pool of light on the concrete floor six feet below tells me there’s a dim column shining down from the kitchen. I want to call out to Billy, but that would be idiocy. Instead, I snatch a flashlight from the top pantry shelf and cut the kitchen lights. That’s almost as obvious as yelling, but climbing down a ladder through a column of light would be suicide.

To get to the floor of the tunnel, I must descend six ladder steps with my left side facing the open tunnel. That’s the normal method, anyhow. Not tonight. Like a kid edging toward the lip of a high roof, I slide my legs through the dark, toward the place where I know the hole is. A tin can of something falls over the edge, caroms off the ladder, and thuds on the cement below.

I stop, waiting.

When the next howl of pain reverberates up the tunnel, I drop down the hole like a sack, my legs crumpling against the cool concrete, the flashlight buckling under my weight.

Forcing myself to breathe quietly, I lie prone on the tunnel floor and stare into the blackness. The.25 feels like a toy in my hand. It might stop a surprised mugger or rapist, but a psychotic killer could take five bullets from this thing and keep coming.

Move, I tell myself. You’re asking for it.

Brahma could be sitting ten feet up the tunnel right now. I have only one advantage. Home ground. This passage runs thirty feet away from the house, with shelves lining both walls, and ends in a heavy lead door. That door opens onto the main shelter room, which is about fifteen-by-fifteen. A second tunnel runs thirty feet out into the field, to the rear exit. It too is lined with storage shelves and also contains a chemical toilet room. That’s where my gold is stored. Sliding as far as I can under the metal shelving on the left side of the tunnel, I shout: “BILLY! IT’S HARPER! WHERE ARE YOU?”

At first I hear nothing. Then a slow creak of hinges.

“Harper?” A weak Southern drawl.

“Yeah!”

“I’m hit, man! Bad! I need help!”

“Where’s Jimmy?”

A long pause. “Gone for a flashlight!”

Jesus.“Anybody else in here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happened to the lights?”

“Don’t know. I heard something and shot and they went out.” Another groan of pain. “I need help, man!”

Damn damn damn. “Billy?”

“What?”

“What year did you graduate high school?”

“Nineteen-fucking-seventy-eight! Come on, man!”

I aim the.25 straight at the sound of the voice, where paramecia-like blobs of color swirl in a black sea. “Where are you hit?”

“My leg! I’m bleeding bad!”

“Are you in the main room? Square room?”

“I think so.”

“Close the door! So that it’s between you and me!”

While Billy mulls over this instruction, I slither to the center of the tunnel floor and rise into a crouch, the.25 in my right hand. The ceiling has exactly six feet of clearance-my grandfather was five-eleven-so if I stay down I’ll have plenty of room. And I mean to stay down.

“I got you!” Billy yells finally. “Bring it on!”

The metallic screech comes and fades so fast it barely registers before the lead door slams shut. I explode forward like a nose tackle coming out of his stance, my thighs pumping, charging toward the main room and firing as I run. In the closed tunnel the little.25 booms and flashes like a howitzer, deafening me to everything but the high zing of ricochets. I sweep my arm across the tunnel as I fire, trying to maximize the odds of hitting anything between me and the lead door. With my eighth step, I dive forward, scraping my elbows in a second-base slide and jamming my wrist as the empty pistol impacts the lead door.

“OPEN UP!” I yell, hammering the butt of the.25 against the door. If Brahma’s inside, Billy is dead by now, but somehow I don’t think so. Billy’s enough of a redneck that he would die trying to save his honor-and me-before he’d let himself be used to lure me to my death.

When the heavy door finally swings inward, I heave myself over the frame onto some part of Billy Jackson, who screams at the top of his lungs. I shut the door and roll off, still in darkness.

“You okay, Billy?”

“I don’t know.” His groans sound like manly attempts to cover whimpering. “This leg was pumping blood. I tied my belt just above the hole… tight as shit. Where’s that fuckin’ Jimmy?”

I feel Billy’s thigh with my right hand, and what I feel is blood. Lots of it. “We’ve got to get you out.”

“Need a stretcher,” he says, grunting against the pain. “Aaaagh, that fuckin’ Jimmy. He shot me!”

“ What?You sure?”

“Hell no, I ain’t sure. Hey… that was pretty smart what you did with the gun. Think you hit anything?”

“No.”

“Haaaaay!”

I jump so badly that Billy feels compelled to steady me with one hand.

“Don’t shoot, okay?” yells the new voice. “It’s Jimmy!”

“About fuckin’ time, you asshole!”Billy bellows back.

“Sheriff’s on his way!” says Jimmy, coming through the opposite door with a hooded flashlight. “Saw his lights. Must be ten cruisers coming up the highway!”

“Great,” Billy says. “Shine that thing on my leg.”

“Judas Priest,” Jimmy gasps as his light illuminates a ragged red hole in Billy’s blood-soaked trousers. “Jeez, I’m sorry, Bill.”

“I think he’s okay,” I say. “If the bullet hit an artery, his thigh would be as big as a propane bottle. Just keep putting pressure on it.”

Billy doesn’t look relieved, but as soon as I realize he’s out of danger, the real threat hits me. If Brahma’s not in the tunnels, where is he?

“I’ve got to get back upstairs! Any more rounds in that shotgun?”

“Ain’t no plug in this baby,” says Billy, handing me the Remington. “Three more rounds ready to go.”

I pump in a round, kick open the lead door, and fire the moment the barrel is clear. Before the echo fades I am over the lip and charging back up the tunnel, homing on a barely visible column of light that must mark the opening of the trapdoor above. With every step I feel a knife blade whooshing out of the darkness to plunge into my groin or rip open my back. I fire again for intimidation, then dive for the ladder, saving the final round for the house.

I come up out of the hole like a coal miner from a collapsed shaft, pushing the gun in front and yelling for Drewe as I enter the hall. When she answers through the bedroom door, I pause.

“It’s all right!” she shouts again. “Come in!”

I stand to the side and turn the knob slowly, then kick open the door and jump back in case she’s being forced to speak. She is just where I left her, kneeling behind the bed with the big-barreled Magnum propped in front of her like a mortar.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Billy’s hit. He’ll make it, though. No sign of Brahma.”

The Magnum drops hard onto the bedcovers. “Harper,” she says in an exhausted voice, “does Mama know about Erin?”

“Your father does. I told him. He chartered a plane in Memphis. He’s home by now, and I’m sure he’s told your mother.”

Drewe is crying again. “I’ve got to be there,” she chokes out. “They need me.”

“Throw some clothes in a bag. You’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

While she wipes away the tears and goes to her closet, I stand watch with the shotgun.

“Have you packed already?” she asks.

I don’t meet her eyes. “Do you really think I’d be welcome there tonight?”

When I look up, she is staring at me with her mouth open. “You know it was Brahma that was here tonight, don’t you?”

I nod. “It had to be.”

“And it wasn’t an accident, was it? It wasn’t random.”

“No. Drewe-”

“Don’t tell me,” she says, shaking her head. “I can’t think about that now. Oh God.”

She looks a moment longer, then turns back to the closet and continues packing. As she does, I realize that Erin’s death may have driven something between us that can never be removed.

Trying to focus on anything but that thought, I decide I might be able to save a lot of trouble-and possibly our lives-by calling the sheriff’s department and telling them to inform Buckner by radio that Drewe and I will be leaving the house armed. I make the call, and the dispatcher agrees to do it while I wait. A moment later, she tells me we should come out unarmed. I tell her to forget it. Brahma could still be in the house, waiting for just such an opportunity.

When Drewe is packed, I give her the shotgun, shoulder her bag, and grip the Magnum in my right hand. “Ready?” I ask.

She nods.

We burst out of the bedroom door at a near run, careening up the hall and crashing through the front door into a supernova of white light.

“THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!” roars a bullhorn voice. “RIGHT NOW!”

I toss the Magnum onto the porch. Drewe does the same with the shotgun. Just to be safe, I put up both hands, and Drewe follows my example. It’s raining again. As my pupils contract, I make out a ring of cars and men behind the spotlights.

“COME DOWN FROM THE PORCH AND LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND!”

“It’s too goddamned muddy!” I shout back.

After a tense silence, the cookie-cutter silhouette of a cowboy blots out some of the light in front of us.

“What in the name of creation happened out here?” bellows Sheriff Buckner, beckoning us toward the shelter of the cars. “Anybody else in that house?”

“I don’t know.” I lead Drewe down the steps into the rain and start explaining the situation. Buckner’s face remains impassive. He already knows about Billy Jackson. “You realize what you did by not telling us about that basement?” he yells. “I’ve got a critically injured man!”

“I told Billy to wait for you. He wouldn’t listen.”

He shakes his head. “That’s about the first thing you ever told me I believe.”

“Sheriff, I need to get my wife to her parents’ house. It’s pouring rain out here.”

“You ain’t going nowhere, Cole. Not till we figure out what’s what around here.”

“She hasn’t seen her mother or father yet. I know Dr. Anderson must be worried sick by now.”

Buckner looks at Drewe’s washed-out face, then signals to a deputy. “Daniels, you take this lady to Bob Anderson’s house outside of Yazoo City. She’ll tell you the way.”

“I know the way, Sheriff.”

“Hallelujah. Go on, then.”

“Does it have to be me?”

“Go on, damn it!”

The deputy turns and mopes toward his car, but Drewe doesn’t follow. “I’m not going without my husband,” she says flatly.

“Now, Mrs. Cole,” says Buckner, “you don’t-”

“I mean it.”

“I’ll come straight back with your deputy,” I promise. “Just let me ride with her. You know what she’s been through. You can interrogate me all night long after I get back.”

“I’m gonna do just that,” growls Buckner. “All right, get out of here. Daniels? Make sure you bring Cole back here with you!”

As Drewe and I catch up to the chosen deputy, he mutters, “God, I hate to miss this.”

Climbing into the cruiser, I hear Sheriff Buckner shouting at the house through his bullhorn. He’s not much of a negotiator. Just three sentences.

“HEY IN THERE! IF YOU MAKE ME COME IN AFTER YOU, YOU WILL NOT COME OUT ALIVE! YOU HAVE EXACTLY SIXTY SECONDS TO SURRENDER!”

Then he begins counting.