Walkers

Chapter 24

Joana swung down the path leading from her house to the street, feeling light and free. She was late starting for the office, but she had called in, and John Walton told her to go ahead and take all the time she wanted. The extra hour in bed was a treat, but it was enough. She was eager now to go to work and get her life back into a normal pattern.

She took out her key case to unlock the Datsun, and paused. Was that her telephone ringing? Who would be calling at this hour?

She ran back across the lawn, fumbling the front door key out of the case as she ran. Inside, the telephone continued to ring. She got the door open, ran into the house, and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

Only a dial tone answered.

Damn, wasn't that always the way? It was a small thing, but a nagging annoyance in her otherwise carefree day. Why couldn't they have hung on for just one more ring? Don't worry about it, she told herself. It was probably somebody trying to sell her a bargain trip to Las Vegas.

She went back outside and got in her car, but could not put the phone call completely out of her mind. It was like a tiny itch in a place she couldn't scratch.

She drove on down Santa Monica Boulevard to Century City, turning off there onto Avenue of the Stars. Suddenly traffic jammed up in front of her and came to a dead stop.

Joana was anxious now to be at her desk where she could get at the work she had neglected for a week, and here she was stalled just a block away from her building.

In the unmoving traffic lane next to her an angry-looking man got out of his Volvo and peered up ahead in the street.

Joana leaned across the seat and rolled down the window. "What is it?"

"Some kind of an accident, I guess. I see a police car and an ambulance. Whatever it is, it's costing me money." He climbed back into his car and gripped the steering wheel, glaring straight ahead as though trying to melt away the traffic jam with the force of his anger.

Joana looked down at her own hands and saw that she too was, tense. She relaxed her grip on the wheel and dropped her hands into her lap. She drew in a deep breath. It was all part of living in the big city. Traffic jams, potholes, smog, earthquakes. You couldn't do anything about them, so you might just as well be calm.

A police officer stepped out to the middle of the street and began directing traffic. Gradually the cars began to move out. Joana inched her way over into the curb lane so she would be in a position to turn into the parking garage. As she neared the entrance she saw a dark red smear on the pavement near the curb. An ambulance was pulled up there and the white-coated attendant stood in a knot of people talking animatedly to a policeman. Joana looked away from the scene. She had seen all the blood and death lately that she could handle.

She wheeled into the garage entrance and slipped the coded card into the slot. When the wooden cross-arm lifted she drove on down the ramp past the first sublevel and on to the second, where her company had its parking area.

Since she was late this morning, hers was the only car moving in the underground structure. She had to drive almost to the far end before she found a vacant space.

She got out, locked the Datsun, and started to walk back toward the elevator, located in an island at the center of the vast room. Her footsteps made a hollow echo in the concrete cavern. She shivered under her light sweater. It was cold down there.

For no reason she could name, Joana's feeling of well-being slipped away. The silent cars parked in endless rows, the stark fluorescent lighting, the lingering smell of exhaust fumes, combined to give the underground garage a sinister atmosphere she had never noticed before. Unconciously she quickened her pace. Her footsteps were the only sound in the vault.

No, there was another.

A soft whirring, clicking sound. Joana stopped to listen. Something about it was familiar, but it was out of place. The sound seemed to be coming from the ramp leading down from the level above.

A shadow flicked across one of the heavy pillars that supported the ceiling. Someone was coming down the incline. Joana could feel the fine hairs on her arms stand up. She stood still, watching the bottom of the ramp.

When the boy on the skateboard rolled into sight she almost laughed with relief.

"Davy, what in the world are you doing down here?"

At the sound of her voice the boy expertly changed his direction and made his way toward her along the rows of parked cars.

"Flowers all sold?" she said. Her voice rang off the concrete, high and unnatural.

The boy maneuvered toward her, pumping with one sneakered foot to maintain his speed.

"Is something the matter?"

Something was the matter. It was all wrong. Davy did not belong down here. He never came down here. Something in the boy's attitude as he balanced on the board was stiff and awkward. Joana began to move again toward the elevator.

Then Davy rolled directly under a lighting fixture and Joana saw his face. It had the frozen, waxy look she had come to know so horribly well. His eyes glittered, his mouth hung slack. As he turned to slice between two cars she saw his head. There was a deep bloody depression behind one ear. Davy had skated through traffic once too often.

Joana was running now for the elevator and safety. Behind her came the relentless whirr of the polyurethane wheels and the oiled click of ball bearings.

She reached the closed elevator door and slammed the flat of her hand against the up button. The heat-sensitive green arrow lit up, but the doors did not move. The damned car was on another floor. There was no time to wait for it to get here.

Joana looked quickly over her shoulder and saw Davy swerve into the same corridor she was in. Nothing between them now but a flat expanse of concrete. She saw he was carrying in one hand the short, heavy-bladed stem shears he used to trim his flowers.

"Oh, dear God," she cried, and started to run again. The boy on the skateboard was too fast for her in the open corridor, so she darted between the parked cars to the next row over, and the next.

The side mirrors that jutted out from the cars clipped her painfully in the arms and elbows, but she kept running. Behind her Davy had to slow down to maneuver among the cars, but still he gained.

In a panicky surprise, Joana found she had run through all the rows of parked cars and come up against the cold concrete wall of the garage. Behind her the whirr-click of the skateboard came on, and on. She made her way along the wall to the ramp leading down to the next-lower level. Running out of control down the curving roadway, she heard a loud thump behind her as Davy crashed into a car and fell. It would delay him, but only for a moment.

She came, out of breath, to the next sub-level. Row upon row of silent automobiles. Not a person in sight. No help here. With scarcely a pause she rounded the corner and ran on down one more level. The whirr-click from above told her the skateboard was rolling again.

Bottom level. No one here, either. Just more rows of cars. From up the ramp, the skateboard sound, coming fast.

No more ramps to run down. The elevator-forget it, she would never make it in time. Hide in a car? By the time she found one unlocked, Davy would be on her. Running and dodging among the cars would only buy a little time, and then…

Joana cried out as her foot struck something and she half-stumbled. She looked down and saw a thin, lightweight chain coiled at the side of the ramp. One end was attached to an eyebolt in the concrete wall, the other had a swivel fastener to be hooked to the opposite ramp wall when this level was blocked off.

Without stopping to plan out her moves, Joana picked up the free end of the chain and ran across the ramp, dragging the chain behind her. She crouched there beyond the bulkhead out of sight, holding the chain loose and low. It lay all the way across the floor of the ramp, invisible against the gray concrete.

Whirr-click. The skateboard rounded the last corner above her, and the elongated shadow of the boy crossed the chain and spilled out over the nearest row of parked cars.

Joana gripped the end of the chain, her heart hammering. She saw the skateboarder rolling free and fast, coming down the slope. Davy was holding the stem shears in one hand, balancing himself with the other. The mashed-in head swiveled from side to side as the glittery eyes searched for her among the cars.

With all her strength, Joana pulled up on the end of the chain. It jumped from the pavement and caught the racing skateboard between the fat yellow wheels and the fiber glass board. Davy, his momentum unbroken, flew forward while the skateboard stayed hung up oh the chain.

The boy hit the tinted rear window of a Cadillac. His head smashed through the heavy glass and was trapped, impaled there by the jagged shards. The arms and legs thrashed about in a vain effort to free the head.

Joana still crouched by the side of the ramp, holding the chain with the skateboard caught on it. She stared in near-shock at the struggling figure with its head caught on the shark's teeth of glass. As the body flopped about, the raw edges of glass sawed through the neck, exposing tendons, muscles, and windpipe.

From somewhere up above came the squeal of tires. Joana let go the chain and sagged back against the bulkhead. In seconds Glen's Camaro screeched down the ramp to a stop. A piece of the wooden street-level barrier arm clung to the grille.

Glen leaped from the car and ran to her side. From up the incline came the sound of running feet.

On the broad rear deck of the Cadillac the thrashing body of Davy the flower seller abruptly went limp. It hung there, the head immovably caught on the spears of glass. The last of the walkers was at rest.

THE END