RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King Page 18

  “When did you see him last?” Douglas demanded.

  Rolfe could feel himself rising through many layers of sleep, from the night terrors that had been dreams but always started out as memories. He had been standing on the bank of Sulfur Creek and his sister was wading midstream.

  Her hair had been hacked away and there were patches of bald scalp. Her eyes were bloodshot and set in dark craters. Her lips formed a perfect O and a buzzing sound was coming from her mouth and the sound grew louder until it was like the drone of a million bees. She reached to gather the hem of her dress and began to lift it and he looked away. But his eyes were drawn back to her as she raised it to reveal the gaping hole in her stomach.

  He heard heavy footsteps and the voices overhead. Someone was on the porch and hammering on the door. He brushed flies from his face. His fingernails were caked with dried blood. The door opened and a man shouted and the footsteps went inside.

  He reached for his rifle and rolled out from under the porch.

  The sky was dark gray, the rain falling steadily. He could see no one else in the yard.

  He stepped upon the wooden planks and saw the back of a man in the shadows of the cabin. He was a large man and he was wearing a uniform and there was a gun on his hip. Rolfe aimed the rifle between his shoulder blades and pulled the trigger.

  The force of the bullet spun Douglas’s body halfway around, hands reaching instinctively behind him toward the pain. Then his knees buckled and he collapsed and a dark stain began to spread across his chest.

  Judy, halfway up the ladder, saw the silhouette of the man standing at the door. Then an explosion as Douglas fell to the floor. A second shot rang out and a bullet shattered her wrist. She fell backward from the ladder and dropped the flashlight as she hit the floor. It rolled in a semi-circle until it was pointing at Douglas’s cold and lifeless eyes.

  She reached for her weapon as the rifle fired again. A second shot hit her forearm and she rolled away from the light, knees pressed to her chest, praying the explosions would stop.

  Heavy footsteps crossed the floor and stopped beside her.

  She looked up and saw a big man with wet hair and a long beard, his clothes sodden, the barrel of his rifle pointing at her throat. She could see the muscles twitching around his eyes, finger on the trigger.

  But instead of shooting her he knelt and drew the gun from her holster, tucking it into his belt. Behind him against the wall the young man in underwear remained pinned against the wall, looking away as if he didn’t want to see.

  “Help …” She formed the words that came out in a hoarse whisper. “Help me,” but the man refused to turn his head.

  The shooter knelt and reached for her with a disfigured hand that had no thumb. Four fingers lifted the chain from her neck and he stared at the cross with a look of wonder.

  A long tense moment passed. He released the chain, grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. Then he pushed her toward the door.

  Chapter 26

  Iron Mountain, West Virginia

  There were troopers on all the main highways and Sheriff’s Deputies on back roads. Sam Watson and two of his officers were sent to check on the residents of more remote farms and houses in Kettle Hollow. They woke people up, looked in their barns and outbuildings.

  Sam drove into the Cooney’s farm in driving rain, truck bouncing in the deep ruts until he reached the clearing and his bumper nearly touched the porch. The officer he had brought with him ran to look inside the barn.

  Sam turned up his high beams and got out his shotgun, walked to the front door and pounded it with his fist.

  “It’s Sam Watson, Grant,” he yelled. “Open the damned door.”

  A minute later a balding man opened the door to the glare of the high beams, his son coming up behind him. Sam asked them to step out onto the porch.

  “Everything’s okay.” He glanced inside the house.

  “Hell you want?” the old man yelled. “What are you doing in my barn?” He pointed across the clearing.

  “There’s a fugitive on the mountain killed a woman on Cemetery Hill.”

  One of the officers came out of the barn. “Got enough corn and sugar in there to feed the whole state.”

  Grant stamped his feet and looked out into the rain.

  “We aren’t here about your stills,” Sam said.

  “He killed him!” The voice came from the woods behind the barn. “Killed him dead!” A tall lanky young man in long underwear ran out from the trees, panting, his T-shirt covered with blood. “Killed them both –” His arms were wrapped tightly around his chest and halfway to the house he fell to his knees, head in his hands.

  “The trees!” Sam barked to his officers, drawing his weapon and running toward the man.

  “You hurt,” he yelled, glancing between the man and the trees.

  “There was blood everywhere. I slipped on it and fell in it when I ran out the door.”

  “What blood?” Sam demanded. “Whose blood?”

  “The cop’s,” the man sobbed. “And that lady he shot who was with him.”

  Sam grabbed the man’s T-shirt with his free hand. “What cop?” he demanded, kneeling to look in the man’s face.

  The scrawny young man began to blubber.

  “Who is this?” Sam screamed over his shoulder at the Cooneys.

  “Ledder boy. Clem,” he yelled back. “Ledders from Sulfur Creek.”

  Sam shook the Ledder man hard. “What cop?” he repeated. “What lady?”

  “He was wearing a uniform,” the man said. “And the lady had a gun.”

  Sam released his collar. Rain poured off his face. He slumped back on his heels. Marty and Judy were all he could think of. But how could they have ended up in Kettle Hollow?

  “Follow me,” he yelled to the officers. He pulled the Ledder man to his feet and pushed him in the passenger seat of his truck, then ran around and jumped in behind the wheel. He put the truck in reverse and punched the accelerator, slinging mud over the porch before he fishtailed out of the lane.

  “How do you get there,” he shouted to the man. “Which way do I turn?”

  “Right there,” the man said. “Sulfur Creek,” and Sam jerked the wheel. “Just a little ways now. Right around the curve, there, turn there on the right.” He pointed at a set of deep ruts. Sam turned hard and his tires began to spin.

  “How much farther?” he yelled.

  The man shook his head. “Not far.” Then he looked up at Sam. “But what if he’s still there?”

  “Who?” Sam yelled. “Who is still there?”

  “My brother,” the man said, hugging his knees against his chest.

  Sam picked up the radio and keyed the emergency services dispatcher. “332. Get an ambulance started to Mountain Road and raise me when they’re on the way. I’ll talk them in when they get near. And try to raise Sheriff Wayne.”

  Sam put the vehicle in four-wheel drive. He could see the fresh tire tracks in the mud; another vehicle had been up the road this morning.

  He heard his call sign come over the radio.

  “331 copy that message. Go ahead 332, come in.”

  Sam grabbed the microphone. “Marty?” he gasped.

  “You having a problem up there, Sam?” Marty asked.

  Sam felt a wave of relief. “I’m heading to Sulfur Creek, Marty. Man said he saw a policeman shot. You still with Agent Wells?”

  “I’m on Cemetery Hill,” he said. “Agent Wells is on her way back to DC. What in the Hell is going on up there?”

  “I have a young man with me, covered in blood, says a policeman was shot near Sulfur Creek. Says there was a woman with him. She was armed and she took some hits as well. I thought it was you two, Marty.”

  Marty lowered the mike to his lap, looked at his watch and then stared across the field. Judy should be on her way back to Washington now.

  He turned to Lazarus and yelled, “Get a roll-call from your people, Johnny. Sam says he may have a policema
n down on the mountain. Ask about Kirsten Berkley too. Might be a female officer involved.”

  Sam drove the lane until the truck would go no further. Then he got out and ran with shotgun in hand. He left the Ledder man behind for the officers to look after. Around the next curve the fresh tracks slid off the side of the mountain. He ran to the edge and saw an orange truck caught in the trees. It was lying on its side in a cradle of tree limbs, headlights still cutting swaths through the forest. It was Chief Douglas’s truck from Quills Landing.

  One of the officers came up behind him and Sam gave him his shotgun and radio to hold. Then he made his way down the muddy slope, sliding part way, using roots for handholds until he reached the truck.

  Rain pelted the forest, pinging noisily off the side of the truck. Mist crept out of the chasm below it. The windows were broken. There was a tree limb wedged in the door. He vaulted himself over the side and looked through the broken window. The cab was empty.

  He labored back up the bank, retrieved his shotgun and ran the rest of the road with the officer alongside.

  Soon he came to a clearing and a cabin. The door was standing open.

  He released the safety and leaped to the porch. A man’s legs were immediately visible through the door. Sam stepped inside and saw a flashlight burning dimly on the floor.

  Chief Douglas lay in a pool of dark blood. He’d been shot in the back.

  “Over there.” The officer pointed, and Sam could see a blood smear beneath a ladder to the loft.

  Chapter 27

  Iron Mountain, West Virginia

  There was only one reason to let her live, Judy thought. He needed a hostage. He had killed a cop and now he needed a human shield. When he felt safe once again he would kill her too. The only question that remained was how long it was going to take. She looked at the terrifying knife on his belt and thought about the woman’s eyes on Cemetery Hill. And she knew: he had made them watch as he cut them open.

  She observed him carefully. He almost seemed to have had it all planned. He had taken packs from beneath the cabin porch and pulled her across the clearing and up into the trees, climbing the side of a hill and away from the cabin. What would he do next?

  He pushed her again and she stumbled over a fallen tree. Reaching to break the fall with the one good hand she plunged into a hole full of leaves.

  She struggled to get back on her feet, noting how thick the forest was, how easy it would be to sprint behind a tree. Her legs were good. She would have to wait for a chance to break free, but once she put distance between them the rifle would do him little good. The trees would protect her as she dodged her way back to the cabin. And in the cabin was Douglas’s radio and pistol. In the cabin she would have a chance to live.

  He nudged her again and she moved forward.

  The underbrush concerned her, and also the handicap of having no left hand to break her fall. Even if she could get beyond his line of sight she might stumble, and if she stumbled he might shoot her.

  Her only other option was to wait to see what other opportunity might present itself later. And so she walked before him into the rain and the gray mist of dawn.

  Pain began and ended everywhere, from her shoulder to her hand, so intense at times that she wanted to stop, to fall to her knees and let whatever was going to happen come now. But she kept walking, glancing behind, looking, listening for any evidence that someone was following. But there was nothing. They were alone and they were moving away from the cabin and the last place on earth anyone would think to look for her.

  The grade steadily inclined. He pushed her through the trees with a hand and then the barrel of his rifle, nudging her when she strayed right or left. On and on they climbed, her injured arm hanging limp at her side, neck and face scratched red by the thorns and the branches she could not push out of her way, her vision blurred by tears.

  Mud was caked around her shoes, turning them into ponderous weights. Her thighs ached. She fell countless times and used her elbows to get back up. They waded streams and skirted outcrops, slid into craters and climbed out of ravines. She focused on landmarks in that first hour, hoping to find her way back. She wanted to believe she had some advantage. That she was smarter than him. That she could outwit him when the moment was right.

  But the farther they went, the more she doubted her logic and in the next hour she was near cataleptic, stumbling blindly into the unknown. She was getting more lost and he was getting more comfortable. He was entirely in his element, she thought.

  One foot up, one foot down, toe tripping over a rock, shoulder striking a tree. Up, always up, always going away from the cabin and civilization. Blood dripping from her sleeves.

  She wondered if Marty had tried to call her cellphone and got no answer. She wondered if he would have stopped by the motel and discovered her note in the door. If he had, it would lead him to her car in Quills Landing. Maybe then he would try to find Douglas and learn that the Preacher had sent them to Kettle Hollow.

  But her best chance was also her most uncertain: the lanky young man in the cabin who had witnessed the shooting. She remembered that look of terror on his face. He was terrified of his very own brother.

  What would the man have done when they left? Run to the nearest neighbors for help? But how far and how long would it take him before someone got to a phone? If anyone had a phone. A phone could bring help quickly. There were policemen all over the crime scene on Cemetery Hill. They could be at the cabin in minutes and send search parties onto the mountain.

  The rain continued to pour, pelting leaves and no doubt washing away their scent. The sound of the rain never varied, like the constant rushing of a waterfall.

  Rain ... rain ... She lifted a shoe, her mind now reliving the shooting in the cabin in slow motion. Play, stop, rewind, replay … over and over until she began to dissociate with the event, until it had nothing whatever to do with her.

  Shock was beginning to set in. Her eyes were glazing over. She stumbled blankly ahead like a survivor leaving a plane crash or a bombing or a battlefield. She tripped and fell; and fell again, but this time she didn’t get up. This time she lay there ready to die, cheek against the soil, eyes going in and out of focus and the rain continuing to fall.

  Once she thought she heard the bleating of a goat and looked up to see a horned animal chewing grass by a rotting post. Once he was pushing his fingers into her mouth and forcing her to swallow something bitter. Then the numbing from head to toe. She felt no pain, no fear, no emotion of any kind.

  She was aware that he was leaning over her, tearing her shirt. She saw large, dark, luminous eyes on a face covered with dirt. She saw the big black knife in his hand. Then she saw nothing.

  It could have been an hour or it could have been a day, but when she opened her eyes again it was dusk. Her mouth tasted horrible, her tongue was thick and sticky. He was sitting next to her and chewing on something, watching her.

  She saw poultices on the bullet wounds and they had been tied in place with strips of her shirt. When he finished chewing he took a wad of something from his mouth and forced it between her lips. She held it there, looking back at him in wonder. Why hadn’t he killed her? What was he saving her for?

  She looked up at the treetops; the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. She chewed the wad and it was like stems and bitter leaves. She swallowed the thing and he seemed pleased. He got to his feet, collected his packs and rifle and reached for her good arm to pull her to her feet.

  She took a wobbly step, wondering if she was hallucinating. Was this a dream or was it real? Or maybe she was already dead? Thoughts of fear and escape were no longer there. Now there was only walking. Walking was all she had to think about now.

  The trees began to thin and the earth turned to grit; rocks began to appear on a barren moonscape plain. To her right were the peaks of three mountains. To her left were trees that extended to the horizon.

  Later the pain began to return, fragments of bone moving through, t
earing at the flesh in her shattered wrist and forearm. She thought about the leaves he had made her chew. He had anesthetized her to keep her walking, to stay ahead of the people that would be looking for them.

  She stopped abruptly, letting him get ahead by several yards, and he turned.

  She looked around at the boulders and brush, reflecting how easily she had slipped from civilization. Was this where she wanted to die? On a barren mountaintop alone with this man?

  She took an inventory of herself. She knew she was weak from blood loss. She knew her injuries were significant and that she might never again use her hand. But nothing was life-threatening and she still had another good arm and two legs.

  She thought about her life and all the disappointments and sorrows. How easy it would be to let it end here, to escape the sadness, anxiety and fear. No one would look back upon it and blame her in the least. No one would even know. Death would appear to have been beyond her control.

  Then she thought about Carol and Marty and wondered what they would have told her right now?

  And decided she wanted to live.

  She took a step forward and then another and the man shouldered his rifle.

  The winds were changing direction, low-altitude clouds racing above their heads. Just before dark they descended into a boulder field. Far below them a narrow canyon led to the Monongahela Forest and an endless canopy of trees.

  Chapter 28

  Iron Mountain, West Virginia

  Marty stood in the clearing by the Ledder cabin, watching the procession of federal agents arrive. Generators powered lighting as forensics technicians worked inside the cabin. Others were making a video of the porch and things beneath it.

  Men and women in suits and leather shoes huddled under umbrellas with cellphones and PDAs. A team of tracking dogs was on its way from the Mount Olive Northern Correctional Facility.