Part 14 (1/2)
”Mom!” she shouted. ”Mom where are you?”
”Jenny?” Anna's voice came from the living room. ”Are you OK, honey?”
”Mom!” said Jenny, running to Anna. ”Somebody shot at us! He kept shooting and shooting!” She wrapped her arms around Anna, sobbing violently.
”Who?” said Anna, hugging her. ”Who was shooting at you, honey? Where?”
Jenny was sobbing too hard into Anna's shoulder to answer. Matt entered the living room. ”What happened?” Anna asked him. ”What's going on?''
”We were in the Grove?” said Matt. ”Playing Killer? And I was gonna shoot Jenny? But somebody started shooting at us.”
”You mean with a squirt gun?” asked Anna.
”No,” said Matt. ”It was a gun gun. With bullets.”
”Oh my G.o.d!” said Anna, horrified. ”Who?”
”We don't know,” said Matt. ”He was, like, this crazy person.”
”Oh my G.o.d!” said Anna, hugging Jenny tighter.
”So we ran away, and we don't know where Andrew is,” said Matt. ”We came here to call the police.”
”OK, right,” said Anna, fighting to calm herself. ”We'll call the police.”
”Can I call my dad first?” asked Matt.
”Right,” said Anna, ”call your dad, let him know you're here, then we'll call the police.”
”Mom,” sobbed Jenny, ”I was so scared.”
”It's OK, honey,” said Anna, stroking her daughter's hair. ”It's OK. You're home now. You're safe here.”
On the street outside, in the front seat of the Lexus, Snake looked in Arthur Herk's wallet to make sure the address on the driver's license-238 Garbanzo-was the house Herk had driven to.
Satisfied, he said, ”OK, open it.”
Herk punched in the code and the driveway gate slid open. Snake said, ”OK, chief, who're we gonna find at home?”
”n.o.body,” said Arthur. ”I mean, just my wife and her kid.”
”That's all? Just women?” Snake knew that a lot of these drug kingpins had henchmen around.
”Far as I know,” said Arthur.
”Well, you better be right,” said Snake, ” 'cause when we go in, I'm gonna have this gun pointin' right at your head. Anybody tries to f.u.c.k with me, your brains is spaghetti on the f.u.c.kin' wall.”
”Look,” said Arthur, ”you don't need to shoot me. You can have whatever you want, OK? Just take it. Anything.”
Snake thought about that.
”Your wife,” he said. ”She good-lookin'?”
Arthur turned and looked right at Snake.
”Very,” he said. ”And so is her kid.”
Buffy moved cautiously through the dark and dripping underground pa.s.sageway, gripping a wooden stake, knowing she had to destroy the hideous creature before it destroyed her. The creature was close by; she could feel it.
Eliot could feel it, too. In the excruciating tension of the moment, he had suspended, temporarily, the chewing of his Cheez-It. The small damp orange square rested uneasily on his tongue.
Buffy saw an opening just ahead to her right, a low, dark hole in the wall. She stopped in front of the opening, peering inside, her eyes unable to penetrate the gloom. But she knew the thing was in there. And she knew she had to go in there after it. Crouching, holding the stake in front of her, she began to edge forward into the darkness, when suddenly ...
BRINNNGG!
Eliot started, spewing a Cheez-It glob onto his shorts.
”d.a.m.n,” he said, reaching for the phone. ”h.e.l.lo?”
”Dad, somebody shot at us and we gotta call the police,” said Matt.
”Matt?” said Eliot. ”Are you OK?”
”Yeah but we gotta call the police.”
”Where are you?”
”Jenny's house. We drove the Kia here.”
”What do you mean, somebody shot at you? You mean with a squirt gun?”
”No! With a gun!”
”Who?”