Endless Night Part 18

Bill Peterson (the late)

Dale Preston (the late)

Frank "Tex" Austin (the late)

Tony "Private" Majors (the late)

Simon Quirt (yours truly)

That's us. The full complement, the roll call, the living and the dead.

Quite a few of us have bit the dust along the way, it seems. Good fellows, all. Good and perverted.

Uh-oh.

I hear something.

I hear a car!

There is a powerful, grumbly engine on the beast.

Sounds like the car might very well be a Jaguar.

Hmm. Silence.

Hear that? A car door going thud.

. Benedict is here, I do believe.

Just for laughs, I'll leave the recorder going. Maybe it'll pick up the fun and games.

Shhh.

I hear footsteps. A key is going into the front door.

Stay tuned, folks.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo. You must be Benedict."

"Uh, yes. Uh..."

"Doris. Doris Knight. Hillary mentioned that you might be along any minute."

"Oh? Where is she?"

"Oh, she's indisposed at the moment."

"Indisposed?"

"The little girl's room. You know."

"Oh. Yeah. Well..."

"I just stopped by to chat for a while. I'm so new on the block, and I said to myself, *Self, you ought to go around and meet your new neighbors.' So here I am. Hillary was just telling me about her car troubles. Horrible."

"Yeah. The thing was supposed to be ready yester ... Hillary... she has a blouse just exactly like that one."

"Really? Did she buy hers at Nordstrom?"

"That purse is just ... What's going on here? That is her purse. Hillary! Hillary!"

"It is her purse, Benedict. It's her blouse, too. And her skirt. Her everything. For heaven's sake, this is even Hillary's hair! Catch!"

"Ahhhhhh! Ahh! Ahhhhhh!"

"Hey, shut up!"

"Ahhhhh!"

"Simon says *shut up.' And so does Samuel Colt."

"Uh. Uh-uh."

"Shhhhh."

"Uhhh."

"Okay, that's better. Now pick up the hair and bring it back over here ... Thank you. Now, get down on your knees."

"Puh-Pleeeze!"

"Simon says get down on your knees."

"Don't shoot me. Pleeeeze!"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that. Too noisy. And not much fun, really. I'll do you with this little baby here."

"No. No! Put that ... Don't! I'll do anything. Pleee ... EEA WWW AHHHH! BLUHHAWWW! EEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEE! EEEUHGGUG! UH."

"s.h.i.+t. Now I have to change my clothes."

Part Three.

Witness Protection.

Chapter Fourteen.

Jody woke up in her own bedroom. She wasn't under the covers, though. She lay on top, dressed in shorts and a blouse instead of her nights.h.i.+rt, warm rays of sunlight slanting across her legs. The light was golden, afloat with drifting motes.

She knew it must be late afternoon.

Suddenly, she remembered Evelyn getting hoisted high in the dark doorway.

On the edge of remembering more, she sat up fast. And groaned as a legion of sharp pains and dull aches scaled her body. She hurt everywhere.

At least I'm alive, she thought.

With that, she fell off the edge, plunged into an abyss where images of slaughter flashed through her mind.

To stop them, she scurried off her bed. She winced when her feet hit the floor, and realized they were bandaged beneath her white crew socks. She dropped backward onto the mattress to get the weight off her feet. And her rump sang with pain. It wasn't a terrible pain, but a peculiar sort that gave her a lump in the throat and made her eyes water.

When the hurting faded, she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes.

"You must be a h.e.l.l of an engineer," the ER nurse had told her. He was a nurse, but a man. He had reminded her very much of Mr. Rogers. Fred, not Roy or Will. Fred Rogers, who always had beautiful days in his neighborhood. The nurse had the look, and also the sing-song voice.

"A what?" she'd asked. "An engineer?"

The nurse gave her a big smile. "Because you're such a ramblin' wreck."

"Oh," Jody had said.

That was somewhat later, of course. The doctor had already been in, by then, and left. There'd been nothing at all cheerful or dopey about the doctor. He'd reminded Jody of Mr. Green, her social studies teacher. He'd scowled at her chart, then scowled into her eyes, then said, "Let's have a look at the damage, young lady."

Time to get naked. Dad, obligingly, made himself scarce by swaggering to the other side of the part.i.tion.

"Let me see, now," the doctor had said. "What have we here?" He'd then commenced to do more than simply look at the damage. He'd prodded it, stroked it and squeezed it, muttering all the while. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Hmmm. Does it hurt when I do this? Uh-huh. Yes. Hmmm." And finally, he'd p.r.o.nounced, "Well, you'll live. I'd say you've got nothing more serious here than your standard, garden-variety a.s.sortment of nicks, sc.r.a.pes and bruises. I'll have a few words with your father. In the meantime, we'll have Nurse Gumbol in here to patch you up, then you'll be free to go."

Exit the doctor. Enter Nurse Gumbol, who was pretty handsome, actually, even if he did remind Jody of Mr. Rogers. Handsome and young. Enough of both so that her skin flushed red all the way down to her toes. He'd said, "Oh, please, don't be embarra.s.sed, deary. I've seen it all, if you know what I mean. Though you are my first engineer of the day. I can see just by looking that you must be a h.e.l.l of an engineer."

"A what? An engineer?"

"Because you're such a ramblin' wreck."

Then he had gotten to work with antiseptic and bandages. First he'd done her front. Then she had rolled over so he could patch her back. He'd saved her feet for last. He'd never stopped talking.

Jody couldn't remember much of what he'd said, but did recall that it had mostly been cheerful and fairly lame. A nice guy, but gosh.

One thing he had said was, "Next time you go up against Green Bay, wear padding."

In the car on the way home, she and Andy in the back seat, Dad behind the wheel, she'd asked, "Hey, what's Green Bay?"

"A city in Wisconsin. 1 suppose it's on Lake Michigan."

"The nurse said I should wear pads when I go there. Or something like that."

At that, Dad had looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Back in olden times, when I was just a kid, the Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi was the best football team in the world. I believe the nurse was making a joke about the vast extent of your injuries."

"Doesn't he know what happened to me?"

"He knows you were fleeing a.s.sailants. That's all we gave out about either one of you."

"Did you have the guy that looks like Mr. Rogers?" Andy had asked her.

"Yeah. He was nice, wasn't he?"

"Yeah." Then, as if the simple idea of someone being nice was too much for him to bear, Andy's face had crumpled. Jody had put her arms around him and embraced him while he cried.

He'd been asleep by the time they'd reached home. Instead of waking him, Dad had come around to the car's back door and lifted Andy out and carried him into the house.

Jody hadn't planned to take a nap, herself. She'd been very tired, but what she'd really wanted was to change into normal clothes, then go to her father and be with him. Sit with him and maybe have some breakfast, and talk, and look at him, and just be close to him where it was safe.

She must've stretched out on her bed, though, and shut her eyes.

And then she must've slept for hours and hours.

No wonder, she thought. I sure didn't get much sleep last night.

Last night. The hallway. Her glimpse into the master bedroom. All those men. All that blood. The upside-down head...