Creatures of Appetite (25 page)

“For the entrée, we’ll be having a dish called Okonomiyaki. Japanese, have you heard of it? It’s delicious, a big favorite in Osaka. The best way to describe it would be as a grilled meat and egg pancake with special seasoning. In Japan they use seafood or beef, but of course I have a more flavorful substitute in mind for us.”

“When did it happen, Jeff?”

“When did what happen, Emma?”

“When did the theme music from Looney Tunes start playing nonstop in your head, twenty-four-seven?”

“I’m not crazy, Emma.”

“You’re EATING KIDS, Jeff, you crossed the line of sanity a long time ago. You are a fruitcake psycho-killer!”

Gilday laughed gently. “We’re all killers. You think Gerry was a better man than me, is that why you fucked him on the first date? He killed people in Iraq. We both did, even after the war was over. Especially after it was over, we used to go out at night and shoot any Iraqis we saw, women or children, it didn’t matter.

“We went hunting for them; just like people here hunt deer during deer season, and it was fun. We killed and sometimes we did more than that. Gerry likes to pretend none of that ever happened, but trust me, it did.

“You think he was better than me, but he was the same, just dumber and less honest about it. We’re all killers, Kane, in one degree or another. Everything else in life is just a matter of taste and appetite.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’ll see. Have you ever smelled flesh as it burns?”

“What?”

“I first smelled flesh burning in Iraq, during the war. When flesh burns, it smells sweet. Flesh burns sweet and it tastes even sweeter. You’ll soon see.”

“No! Listen to me, Jeff, don’t do this!”

Gilday picked up a sharp knife and stood behind Darcy. He put a bowl down in front of her and held the knife close to her throat with his right hand. He took the young girl by the hair with his left hand and forced her to lean forward over the bowl. Darcy’s eyes went wide.

“Let’s start the soup.”

“No!” Kane screamed.

Gilday touched the edge of the blade to Darcy’s throat.

Glass broke somewhere in another part of the school.

Gilday put the knife down and listened closely. He stood up.

“Company. Thorne must have gotten my fax. This could make things interesting.”

“We’re in the kitchen, help!” Kane yelled.

Gilday put the duct tape back on Kane’s mouth. Gilday took his pistol out of the holster on his hip and checked it. Reaching behind Kane, he pressed play on a portable CD player on the counter. The Bon Jovi song, “Living On A Prayer,” began to play.

“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

Gilday turned off the lights in the kitchen and disappeared.

T
horne and Johnson
climbed through a broken classroom window on the first floor. The front end of the snowmobile jutted halfway through the window. At a loss for a way in, Thorne simply aimed the vehicle at the nearest, largest window.

The snow had drifted up high enough against the building that they even had to step down in order to get in. The wind blew snow into the room and blew colored cardboard paper everywhere.

“Are we going to get in trouble for this?” Johnson asked, eyeing the mess.

“Shhh.”

Thorne drew his weapon and walked carefully to the classroom door. Johnson followed him awkwardly, bumping into one the lockers lining the wall of the classroom. Thorne glared at him and Johnson mouthed an apology.

Thorne very carefully opened the classroom door and looked both ways down the dark hallway of the school. Thorne took a few steps into the hall and stopped suddenly. Johnson ran into him. Thorne swiveled and pointed a warning finger at him.

“Johnson!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t …”

“Shut up,” Thorne cut him off with a whisper. Music played from somewhere in the school. He looked around and then pointed at Johnson again.

“Stay here.”

“Okay.”

Thorne started to go, then stopped.

“Johnson.”

“What?”

“Draw your weapon.”

Johnson clumsily pulled his pistol out from under the snow-clothes he wore.

“Stay here, don’t make any noise and don’t wander around. You see anybody that isn’t me or Kane, don’t talk, just shoot them, got it?”

“Yeah, okay, you got it.”

Thorne looked at him hard for a moment and then carefully stalked down the darkened hallway, his weapon out in front of him. Hunting.

D
arcy Mullens
stared at Kane, eyes filled with tears and pleading. Bon Jovi wailed on the stereo. Kane strained her arms against the handcuffs behind her, testing them. Kane knew what she had to do and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

Kane took several deep breaths through her nose, positioned her right hand and made her fist as small as possible. Focusing her concentration, Kane wrenched her right hand right through the handcuff, which left skin and blood and dislocated her thumb with an audible pop. Kane screamed in pain through the tape covering her mouth.

Bringing her hands out in front her, the handcuffs still hanging from her left, Kane examined her swollen, damaged right hand and thumb.

Glancing at Darcy, Kane took a couple more deep breaths, preparing herself for what must come next, and then quickly jammed her right thumb back into its socket with another pop. Kane let loose with another muffled scream.

She took the tape off of her mouth, her breath heavy, cold sweat running down her forehead and over her entire body.

Kane untied Darcy and thought hard on how to get her out of this alive.

J
ohnson inched out
of the classroom and looked down the hallway. It was long, dark and spooky. It made Johnson nervous, being in a school at night, like he was doing something very forbidden. Thorne seemed to have disappeared; one minute he was there, the next he was gone. Just like that.

Johnson tiptoed down the hallway trying to see if he could see where Thorne went. Johnson stopped to admire the holiday murals on the wall created by the school kids. The entire wall was covered with artwork.

Johnson followed the murals down the hall. It’s good stuff, Johnson thought. He didn’t remember getting to do this kind of thing when he was in elementary school. Totally engrossed in the artwork, Johnson came to a turn in the hallway and almost ran right into Gilday, coming from the other direction. Both men jumped, startled. They stared at each other for a moment, and then both laughed, embarrassed.

“Jesus, Bill,” Gilday said. “You about gave me a goddamn heart attack.”

Gilday lowered his weapon and returned it to the holster on his hip. He shook his head good-humoredly.

“You? I think I just lost ten years of my life,” Johnson lowered his gun and held his other hand over his heart. “Shit.”

“This is the kind of scare that can make a guy’s hair fall out prematurely,” Gilday said and casually walked to the small “In Case Of Fire” glass case on the wall of the hallway. He opened the door of the case.

“Yeah, tell me about it. What are, uh … what are you doing here anyway, Jeff?”

“That’s funny, Bill, ’cause …”

Gilday took the fire ax out of its glass case, turned, swung and smoothly buried it right into Johnson’s left side. Blood spattered against the hallway wall.

Johnson was too surprised to even move or cry out, he simply stood there with an ax in his side, blood flecked on his lips, and looked at Gilday in shock. Johnson dropped his weapon to the floor.

“I was about to ask you the same exact thing.”

Johnson tried to speak but was unable.

“Shh,” Gilday put a finger to his lips. He pulled his weapon back out of his holster and glanced both ways down the hall. “I want to surprise him.”

Johnson toppled to the floor, landing on his right side on top of his gun. Blood poured out of his side, as Johnson lay gasping for breath. Gilday left him lying there, ax lodged in his body.

K
ane
, Darcy in her arms, made her way out of the kitchen quietly as possible and looked for a way out of the school. Darcy sobbed, her face buried into Kane’s neck.

“Shhh, I know, honey, we have to be quiet now, shh,” Kane whispered to Darcy as she felt her way along in the dark hallway, every closed classroom door hiding a potential threat.

We need to get out and get out quick, Kane thought. Problem one, I’m not sure which way is out. Problem two, we are also both barefoot. No shoes, no parkas, we won’t last very long once we do get outside, she thought to herself grimly.

Problem three, I’m not armed. Problem four, we keep running around here we’re bound to bump back into Gilday. The school was only one story high but spread out over a large area, like a lot of schools in the Midwest where there was more land than money, with hallways that seem to circle around on each other.

Other than getting out, the only other option was finding whoever it was that had spooked Gilday. She hoped it was Thorne.

Kane spotted an exit door and ran to it as quietly as she could. The door was chained and locked. Kane pushed and pulled on it as hard as she could to no avail. She forgot about her injured hand and banged on the door with her swollen fist, sending jolts of pain up to her shoulder. Goddamn it, Kane thought, the doors should open from this side as per fire codes.

Gritting her teeth, Kane shifted Darcy to the floor and, holding each other’s hands, they quietly returned to the hallway and crept along, looking for another way out.