Slaughter - Lutz John - Страница 18

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Right now, the bus was a small yellow dot crawling in his direction along the perfectly straight, perfectly flat county road. Jordan’s view was a mosaic of straight lines and ninety-degree angles.

He looked back toward the distant house and his heartbeat quickened. He was sure there was a barely visible curl of dark smoke rising from the house.

It’s working!

He squinted again at the bright morning sun, his friend and accomplice.

Jordan moved out where he could be seen as the bus grew larger. He knew there would be half a dozen kids on the bus, and he wanted to board fast, so no one would look off in the direction of the house. A glance back informed him that the smoke was rising darker and more visible. He knew it wasn’t rising as fast and high as it might, because the morning was still.

The bus became larger faster, and then it was very near. Air brakes hissed and the yellow pneumatic doors folded open. Jordan got in fast, flashed his student pass even though the bus driver knew him, and moved quickly down the aisle. He flung himself into a seat halfway back, and saw that the driver, a man he knew only as Ben, was watching him in the big rearview mirror, waiting to make sure he was seated. Ben waited before driving away, making Jordan nervous enough to notice that his right arm was trembling. He willed it to be still, and it became still.

“Nobody else this morning?” the driver called.

“Sleepin’ in,” Jordan answered.

“Lucky them,” Ben the driver said. The diesel engine growled and clattered and the bus moved away.

Jordan could smell burning. He was sure it was the bus’s exhaust and not the house. Not from this distance.

The driver caught his eye in the oversized mirror. “How’re your mom and dad?” he called in a loud voice.

“They’re good,” Jordan said.

As the bus picked up speed, it rattled and roared and became too loud to talk over. Jordan chanced a glance off to the side. There was now what appeared to be a dark cloud looming behind the Kray house. It could have passed for a rain cloud, but he knew it was smoke.

Jordan thought about his mother and father, his sister, and his brother, Kent. He was pleased that he felt no stab of conscience. No regret. None of them, including even Nora, deserved his regret. Bad things in this world simply happened. Everyone tried to make sure they happened to somebody else. Jordan had been taught early on that was how the world worked. And it had to be worked. Losers had to learn to become winners, small fish to survive long enough to become big fish.

He settled back in his seat, excited inside, calm outside. They had taught him how to wear a mask.

The other kids, not long out of their beds, were sleepy and bored and as quiet as Jordan. Ben the driver began mindlessly humming a tune. Jordan couldn’t place it at first, but soon realized it was from the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Then Rollie Conrad, the fat kid who made top grades, yelled, “Hey! Fire!” He was out of his seat and pointing. “Look! Fire! Fire!”

Everyone in the bus crossed the aisle or swiveled to look in the direction Rollie was pointing.

“Fire!” Rollie yelled again, this time louder and spraying spittle.

“We see it,” an older girl named Mary Ann said calmly. She made a face and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Jordan knew it was time to pretend.

“Oh, no! That’s my house! My mom and dad—everybody—they’re in there sleeping!”

“The other kids are in there with your folks?” the driver asked.

“Yes, yes! I said everybody! My whole family!”

The driver said, “Jesus H. Christ!” and brought the bus to a near stop that caused two of the passengers to fall on the floor. “Everybody back in your seat! Now!”

Ben slowed the bus even more, looking for a place to pull to the side where he wouldn’t go off the shoulder or block the road. Then he thought, what the hell? The bus might be the only vehicle for a couple of miles!

He stopped the bus, though it was blocking half of the road, and got his brand-new cell phone. No connection. He remembered the phone company hadn’t put the towers up yet. He was too far from any major population center to make a phone call. Too far from anywhere.

A dead zone.

The driver looked at his passengers. A boy named Wally Clark appeared old enough, skinny and fast enough.

“Know where the Johnston farm is?” the driver asked.

Wally was on his feet, getting the idea.

“You run there, Wally. Fast as you can. Get them to use their phone, get some firefighting equipment out here.”

“Yes, sir,” Wally said as the doors hissed open.

Jordan stood, gripping the seatback in front of him hard with both hands, whitening his knuckles. “Let me go,” he pleaded.

“No, no!” the driver said. Obviously imagining what the poor kid might see or hear. “You don’t wanna go there, son.”

Jordan couldn’t remember when anyone had called him son.

He slumped back down in the seat, glimpsing Wally running along the road in the direction of the Johnston farm, the closest phone. Wally’s heels were kicking up dust that hung in the air behind him. He was making good time at a pace made to seem slow by distance.

Jordan looked toward the house and saw orange glowing here and there through the thick black smoke. The house was blazing. He knew it would take forever for the volunteer fire department to reach the fire. Then their equipment would be inadequate. And how much water could they bring?

He lowered his head so his face was enveloped by his arms, and sobbed.

“Stay where you are, kids!” Ben the driver yelled.

The bus was hot inside and out, and smelled like fuel. Everyone on board was slick with sweat. Jordan’s eyes stung from it and his nose was running. One of the girls was crying.

Jordan counted to ten and then raised his head. Through the bus window he could see Ben the driver running toward the burning house, limping clumsily under the weight of a brass fire extinguisher jouncing in his right hand. Wally, head down and arms pumping, was pulling away from him at an angle, toward the Johnstons and their phone.

Jordan got off the bus and followed Ben.

When they got closer to the house, he saw that a spark or burning tree limb had set the barn roof on fire. Some of the animals were sure to die.

Forget the barn.

He made it to the house.

There were two . . . somethings . . . just inside the porch door, curled and blackened. No one else seemed to have made it that far.

Jordan didn’t hesitate. Holding his breath, he made a fast tour of the burning house. He could feel the heat coming up through the soles of his shoes.

Now he had seen them, all of them . . .

A powerful hand gripped Jordan’s shoulder and squeezed. It was Ben the bus driver, stopping him, pulling him close, closer. Jordan could hear him breathing. Or was he crying?

Ben dragged him outside, and then Jordan found his balance and was walking on his own. Ben pointed, and immediately Jordan knew what he meant. Unhindered by each other, they began to run.

That was when the propane tank alongside the house exploded.

20

New York, the present

Quinn and Pearl stood alongside Nift the ME and watched him explore with his instruments what was left of Margaret Evans. Where she had been eviscerated and her intestines neatly coiled, her breasts had been severed and laid aside.

Reaching so he could probe something in her abdominal cavity, Nift had to stretch and for a second looked as if he might fall across the corpse.

He shook his head, smiled. “Some set of jugs she has—had,” he remarked.

Pearl looked at him as if he were last week’s spoiled meat. She thought that someday without warning she would kick the little prick, hard in the ribs. Maybe the head.

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