Part 20 (1/2)

I ran through the arch and stopped there with my mouth open. Based on Harry's theme, I had always a.s.sumed that I'd have to stop a man swinging the sort of hammer guys kept in their toolboxes. That wasn't what he had. What he had was a sledgehammer with a twenty-pound head, and he was handling it as if it were a toy. His sleeves were rolled up, and I could see the bulge of muscles that had been built up by twenty years of cutting meat and toting carca.s.ses. Doris was on the living room rug. He had already broken her arm-the bone was sticking out through a rip in the sleeve of her dress-and dislocated her shoulder as well, from the look. Her face was pale and dazed. She was crawling across the rug in front of the TV with her hair hanging in her face. Dunning was slinging back the hammer. This time he'd connect with her head, crus.h.i.+ng her skull and sending her brains flying onto the couch cus.h.i.+ons.

Ellen was a little dervish, trying to push him back out the door. ”Stop, Daddy, stop!”

He grabbed her by her hair and heaved her. She went reeling, feathers flying out of her headdress. She struck the rocking chair and knocked it over.

”Dunning!” I shouted. ”Stop it!”

He looked at me with red, streaming eyes. He was drunk. He was crying. Snot hung from his nostrils and spit slicked his chin. His face was a cramp of rage, woe, and bewilderment.

”Who the f.u.c.k're you?” he asked, then charged at me without waiting for an answer.

I pulled the trigger of the revolver, thinking, This time it won't fire, it's a Derry gun and it won't fire.

But it did. The bullet took him in the shoulder. A red rose bloomed on his white s.h.i.+rt. He twisted sideways with the impact, then came on again. He raised the sledge. The bloom on his s.h.i.+rt spread, but he didn't seem to feel it.

I pulled the trigger again, but someone jostled me just as I did, and the bullet went high and wild. It was Harry. ”Stop it, Daddy!” His voice was shrill. ”Stop or I'll shoot you!”

Arthur ”Tugga” Dunning was crawling toward me, toward the kitchen. Just as Harry fired his air rifle-ka-chow!-Dunning brought the sledge down on Tugga's head. The boy's face was obliterated in a sheet of blood. Bone fragments and clumps of hair leaped high in the air; droplets of blood spattered the overhead light fixture. Ellen and Mrs. Dunning were shrieking, shrieking.

I caught my balance and fired a third time. This one tore off Dunning's right cheek all the way up to the ear, but it still didn't stop him. He's not human is what I thought then, and what I still think now. All I saw in his gus.h.i.+ng eyes and gnas.h.i.+ng mouth-he seemed to be chewing the air rather than breathing it-was a kind of blabbering emptiness.

”Who the f.u.c.k're you?” he repeated, then: ”You're trespa.s.sing.”

He slung the sledge back and brought it around in a whistling horizontal arc. I bent at the knees, ducking as I did it, and although the twenty-pound head seemed to miss me entirely-I felt no pain, not then-a wave of heat flashed across the top of my head. The gun flew out of my hand, struck the wall, and bounced into the corner. Something warm was running down the side of my face. Did I understand he'd clipped me just enough to tear a six-inch-long gash in my scalp? That he'd missed either knocking me unconscious or outright killing me by maybe as little as an eighth of an inch? I can't say. All of this happened in less than a minute; maybe it was only thirty seconds. Life turns on a dime, and when it does, it turns fast.

”Get out!” I shouted at Troy. ”Take your sister and get out! Yell for help! Yell your head o-”

Dunning swung the sledge. I jumped back, and the head buried itself in the wall, smas.h.i.+ng laths and sending a puff of plaster into the air to join the gunsmoke. The TV was still playing. Still violins, still murder music.

As Dunning struggled to pull his sledge out of the wall, something flew past me. It was the Daisy air rifle. Harry had thrown it. The barrel struck Frank Dunning in his torn-open cheek and he screamed with pain.

”You little b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I'll kill you for that!”

Troy was carrying Ellen to the door. So that's all right, I thought, I changed things at least that much- But before he could get her out, someone first filled the door and then came stumbling in, knocking Troy Dunning and the little girl to the floor. I barely had time to see this, because Frank had pulled the sledge free and was coming for me. I backed up, shoving Harry into the kitchen with one hand.

”Out the back door, son. Fast. I'll hold him off until you-”

Frank Dunning shrieked and stiffened. All at once something was poking out through his chest. It was like a magic trick. The thing was so coated with blood it took a second for me to realize what it was: the point of a bayonet.

”That's for my sister, you f.u.c.k,” Bill Turcotte rasped. ”That's for Clara.”

13.

Dunning went down, feet in the living room, head in the archway between the living room and the kitchen. But not all the way down. The tip of the blade dug into the floor and held him up. One of his feet kicked a single time, then he was still. He looked like he'd died trying to do a push-up.

Everyone was screaming. The air stank of gunsmoke, plaster, and blood. Doris was lurching crookedly toward her dead son with her hair hanging in her face. I didn't want her to see that-Tugga's head had been split open all the way down to the jaw-but there was no way I could stop her.

”I'll do better next time, Mrs. Dunning,” I croaked. ”That's a promise.”

There was blood all over my face; I had to wipe it out of my left eye in order to see on that side. Since I was still conscious, I thought I wasn't hurt too badly, and I knew that scalp wounds bleed like a b.i.t.c.h. But I was a mess, and if there was ever going to be a next time, I had to get out of here this time, unseen and in a hurry.

But I had to talk to Turcotte before I left. Or at least try. He had collapsed against the wall by Dunning's splayed feet. He was holding his chest and gasping. His face was corpse-white except for his lips, now as purple as those of a kid who has been gobbling huckleberries. I reached for his hand. He grasped it with panicky tightness, but there was a tiny glint of humor in his eyes.

”Who's the chickens.h.i.+t now, Amberson?”

”Not you,” I said. ”You're a hero.”

”Yeah,” he wheezed. ”Just toss the f.u.c.kin medal in my coffin.”

Doris was cradling her dead son. Behind her, Troy was walking in circles with Ellen's head pressed tight against his chest. He didn't look toward us, didn't seem to realize we were there. The little girl was wailing.

”You'll be okay,” I said. As if I knew. ”Now listen, because this is important: forget my name.”

”What name? You never gave it.”

”Right. And . . . you know my car?”

”Ford.” He was losing his voice, but his eyes were still fixed on mine. ”Nice one. Convert. Y-block engine. Fifty-four or-five.”

”You never saw it. That's the most important thing of all, Turcotte. I need it to get downstate tonight and I'll have to take the turnpike most of the way because I don't know any of the other roads. If I can get down to central Maine, I'll be free and clear. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

”Never saw your car,” he said, then winced. ”Ah, f.u.c.k, don't that hurt.”

I put my fingers on his stubble-p.r.i.c.kly throat and felt his pulse. It was rapid and wildly uneven. In the distance I could hear wailing sirens. ”You did the right thing.”

His eyes rolled. ”Almost didn't. I don't know what I was thinkin of. I must have been crazy. Listen, buddy. If they do run you down, don't tell em what I . . . you know, what I-”

”I never would. You took care of him, Turcotte. He was a mad dog and you put him down. Your sister would be proud.”

He smiled and closed his eyes.

14.

I went into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, soaked it in the basin, and scrubbed my b.l.o.o.d.y face. I tossed the towel in the tub, grabbed two more, and stepped out into the kitchen.