The Light at the End (37 page)

They weren’t quite so confident about Allan’s recovery. He wasn’t dead, but he was unconscious, and his breath susurred weakly between the pale lips of his chalk-white face. Josalyn checked for any visible wounds, found none. In a way, that scared her more than anything. She had wiped his brow with holy water, and then she had called for an ambulance.

So when the van pulled up, she half-expected a stream of paramedics to file through the door. Instead, Joseph and Stephen raced in, blankly staring at the destruction, Joseph’s mouth and fists working in a spastic display of frustration and rage.

“THAT WAY!” she hollered, pointing east. Her mind gave her a spitfire image of herself, decked out like a saloon maid in a cheesy Western, yelling
they went thataway, sheriff Head ‘em off at the pass!
But giggling was out of the question.

Joseph whipped around and headed back toward the van. Stephen hesitated, fidgeting like an eight-year-old who hadda go to the baffroom, a question molding itself across his face as he stared first at Allan, then Jerome, then Josalyn.

“
NO
, STEPHEN!” she bellowed, half-guessing the question, not really caring whether or not she was right. “JUST GET HIM!” She pointed a finger at the van like Jesus, directing the moneylenders to the door. Her gaze, when Stephen met it, was a bolt of crazy, imperative fire. He turned and ran, as much to get away from her as to try and find Rudy. She frightened him, in that moment, as much as anything he’d ever seen.

Josalyn watched Stephen disappear around the side of the van, saw it peel out and blast away a moment later. Then she looked down into Jerome’s eyes, saw her own dull shock reflected there. Then she looked away.

“We’ve got to tend to that neck of yours,” he said softly.

“I’m all right,” she said, turning back to him.

“No, you aren’t. Here. Let me.” He took a dry paper towel from the stack in her hand, emptied a vial into it, and gently held it to her wounds. It burned like a bastard for a few seconds, then began to feel very, very, good. Jerome’s touch was tender, like a woman’s. She didn’t try to stop him.

Presently, the sounds of the storm were cut by a sirens distant banshee wail. Another joined it, then another.
It’s almost over
, she thought. A nameless emotion washed over her. She couldn’t have named it if she tried.

The sirens came nearer.

“Figures,” Joseph growled, gunning the engine.

“Every time, we just miss him. Did you notice that: Every time, we get there just in time to see ‘em scrapin’ up another body, man. I can’t stand it.” Staring straight ahead at the road, dimly visible through the rain that pounded against the windshield and the pavement, he didn’t see Stephen’s eyes upon him. “But this time, we’ll get him,” he continued. “Cocksucker is
not
getting away this time.”

Stephen just looked at him, outwardly responding not at all. Part of him was still down in the generator room, hands drenched in the last black heart blood of the bag lady whose eyes had flown open at the second of impact and riveted on his, squirming with an evil life as yet unborn. Part of him was still down there in that undead abortion clinic, kneeling over the body, his hands still on the wood of the stake and the mallet, the full reality of the situation striking home at long long last.

She was already dead
, his mind informed him for the umpteenth time.
I didn’t kill her I killed the thing that was going to take her over. I killed the monster
. He needed to keep telling himself that, even though it was true, even though he already knew it.
I killed the monster
. He had to keep telling himself that, or he was going to go insane.

“Gonna get him,” Joseph repeated, paying no attention to Stephen, talking mostly to himself. He slammed on the brakes abruptly, skidding to a halt at the intersection of Spring and Bowery, blindly looking both ways through the fogged-up windows.

He didn’t even see the figure that raced up to the van until it started slamming against Stephen’s door.

“YAH!” Stephen yelped, flying sideways out of his seat and right into Joseph’s side. Joseph pushed him roughly back and said, “Roll down your window, dumbshit.” He could tell right away that it wasn’t an attack; even dimly seen, the figure pounding on the door looked nothing like Rudy.

Just then, the door flew open. Stephen’s screams stifled in his throat; Joseph leaped forward expectantly. Danny Young grinned in at them and started shouting hysterically, his long hair plastered to his skull, his glasses beaded up with steam and water.

“All right!” Danny shouted. “He’s right over there!” Pointing south down the Bowery, behind him and to their right. “Running like crazy! Are we gonna get him now?”

“Hop in,” Joseph said, already starting to roll. Danny jumped in and slammed the door behind him in one graceful motion, landing on Stephen’s lap as the van wheeled the corner and plowed down the Bowery. Stephen whoofed out air and struggled uncomfortably underneath.

They spotted him about halfway down the block, scuttling over the narrow concrete median strip, cutting over to Broome Street on the other side. “
Son of a bitch!
” Joseph howled, whipping the wheel around suddenly to the right, parking the van haphazardly at the curb. “Lock it up!” he yelled, cutting the engine and pocketing the key in one swift motion, his door already opening, his bulk surging out into the street. Danny leaped out, Stephen scrambling after him.

Then they were running, the three of them, running catercorner across the Bowery and up to Broome, then around the bend and east. Overhead, a bolt of lightning like a neon chain saw sliced through the clouds; and halfway down the block, they saw him.

The sun!
Rudy thought as the lightning shed its flicker-flash of brilliance. He half-expected to be fried in an instant, run the flesh-to-bone-to-ashes gamut that poor old Christopher Lee ran so many times in the old Hammer horror films. Then it was dark again, and he was still running, so he knew that it wasn’t over yet.

But he could already feel the sun, slowly baking its way into his skin. It felt like sunburn: a faint impression of heat that became a tingling and then graduated into burning pain. It was only starting to tingle now, but it would get much worse in a few minutes; and the wounds in his head, hands, and belly felt like somebody was poking them with red-hot tweezers. Even with the cool rain pounding down on him in freshets, the heat was getting worse.

Rudy whipped around the corner, off of Broome and onto Chrystie. Up ahead of him, at the end of the block, lay the subway entrance to the Grand Street station. He slowed for a moment, blinking back rain, searching for the arch above the entrance. His left heel landed on a formless wad of sopping cardboard. He slipped, almost lost his balance, waved his arms like a circus clown on a high wire, howling and cursing the pain.

That was when he saw the three figures racing down the street toward him.

“Jesus Christ,” he whined, and abruptly his tongue felt like a lump of burning coal. He shrieked, an inferno inside his head, and bolted down Chrystie Street like Richard Pryor in free basing flames.

Behind him, the three figures were closing in.

Joseph was in the lead, teeth clenched, breath hissing warmly through them. He was a huge man, not built for speed… not since high school, in fact, had he been forced to do anything more than hustle across a street… but he was moving at a speed that would have surprised him if he thought about it. If he’d had anything but vengeance on his mind.

Behind him, Danny and Stephen were laboring to keep up. He didn’t hear them; he was scarcely aware of their existence. His eyes were set like the cross hairs of a bazooka’s sights on Rudy, less than thirty yards ahead and closing.

I got you now, shitheel
, he thought, pushing even harder, feeling the distance between them diminish with every step forward, every thundering step. Twenty-five yards. Twenty. Fifteen, as Rudy passed the fireplug that marked the last third of the block. Ten, as Joseph passed it seconds later.

Five yards, as Rudy rounded the corner and limped frantically toward the stairs. Three, as Rudy stopped suddenly and brought his hands up to shield his eyes. Two, as Joseph lumbered forward, not aware that Rudy had been blinded by Armond’s ultimate closing gift: a cross of holy water, compounded by the rain to form a phosphorescent pool that spanned the width of the subway entrance. Then one yard. Then none.

Joseph roared, twirling Rudy around by one shoulder, and the vampires fist came around so hard, so fast, that Joseph didn’t even know he was falling until he smacked the sidewalk. The big man shook his head, trying to clear it; his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of Rudy looming overhead, lips snarling in the horrible face…

…and then Stephen rushed past him, not slowing, not braking, running full-tilt and straight into the vampire, who grunted with surprise and then staggered backwards, tripped over the top step, and tumbled end-over-end down the steps.

For a micro-second, it looked like Stephen would be able to stop. Then he, too, was pulled downward by momentum, plummeting after Rudy without so much as a whimper, the two of them vanished from view.

*

…
and he was falling, he was falling, very much like a dream, the repetitiveness of the move smacking of unreality as he hit a step, bounced, hit a step, bounced, tumbling over and over all the while, a jagged gray continuum streaking by his face but never striking it as he rolled and bounced and tumbled and fell…

…and hit the floor on his left side, skidding several feet before breaking into a roll again that came to a stop when he hit the wall. He looked over, dazed, and saw that Rudy was next to him, propped up against the wall, looking like a man who’d just had the rug pulled out from under him.

Their eyes met.

And he was not seeing Rudy, he was seeing a monstrous whiteface caricature of Rudy, a portrait of Dorian Gray made flesh, every sin clearly etched across the features in holy water firebursts of blistering horror, in the cross-shaped brand across the face that warped contusively above the broken nose, in the blackened bald spot where the hair had burned away at the crown of the head, in the roaring red fire of those inhuman eyes.

He heard himself saying
I’m going to kill you
and reached automatically into his messenger bag. He felt the heft of the cross in his hand. He felt it light up like one of those gag light bulbs that you get at novelty stores, the ones that run on batteries and glow at the push of a button. He felt the cross rise up out of the bag, so bright that even he winced reflexively against it.

He saw Rudy’s face peel back in terror, saw the vampire whirl suddenly and blunder to its feet.

He heard the footsteps hurrying down the steps.

He felt himself starting to rise.

Rudy took off in a stumbling run toward the turnstiles. The others were close behind him, but the rumble of an oncoming train overwhelmed them in his ears. It was coming from the staircase on the left-hand side. He veered that way, reaching the turnstiles and vaulting over them, landing awkwardly and teetering for a long dangerous second before moving on.

Stephen was next to hit the turnstiles. He barely heard the shouts of the guy in the token booth as he hurtled over the metal crossbar and raced after Rudy.

By the time Joseph leaped over the top, the guy from the token booth was on an intersect course with Danny. “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” the guy screamed, and Danny skittered to a halt.

“B-But…” he began.

“You gotta pay for all
those
guys, buddy!” the token vendor roared. His face was red, his nostrils flaring. Danny thought briefly of the subway slugs in his pockets, caught himself in the nick of time, and then flipped the man four one-dollar bills.

“Keep the change,” he said, and vaulted the turnstiles.

Downstairs, the train was thundering to a stop. Stephen saw Rudy round the foot of the stairs and head toward the front of the train. Stephen jumped the last six steps and took off after him, still clutching the cross.

He wanted to scream something… a threat, Rudy’s name, an oath to God… but it was all he could do to keep the breath pumping in and out of his lungs as he ran, limping drastically now, the tumble down the stairs finally catching up with him. He kept apace of Rudy, pushing as hard as he could but unable to gain any ground. The tears were starting to come; he cursed at them, tried to shame them away. They bided their time, waiting.

The doors opened. Nobody else was on the platform. Ahead of him, Rudy continued to run. Stephen pursued him.

All the way to the front of the train.

Joseph hit the foot of the steps and turned. Way down at the end of the platform, Rudy and Stephen were a pair of frantic bug-sized specks. He looked at them, knew that he wasn’t going to catch them, and stopped.

There was an open door directly in front of him. Joseph looked at it, looked at the train it was attached to. The beauty, the perfection of it, struck him in a single clear bolt of brilliance.

He smiled.

And stepped onto the train.

“D train to Coney Island,” the conductor’s voice came over the loudspeakers, a robot with a Brooklyn accent. “Watch the closing doors.”

They reached the front of the train, Rudy crossing the threshold of the furthermost door just as the conductor made his speech. A shudder went through the train as the doors slid mechanically shut.

Stephen was just a second too late.

“
NOOOOOH!!!
” he wailed. His fist came up, pounded against the glass windows. He slammed his full weight against the doors. They refused to budge. “
NOOOOOH!!!
” he wailed again, jamming his fingers into the space between the rubber lips that buffered the doors from one another. He pulled at them with all his strength. They refused to budge.

The train began to move.

“
NOOOOOOH!!!
” he wailed, one final time. He fell against the door as it began to skid past him. On the other side of the window, Rudy was laughing and laughing and laughing. Stephen kept pace for almost thirty seconds as the train ground slowly forward. Then it picked up speed, and the metal door frame slammed into his shoulder, bouncing him back slightly and sliding away…

…and then the train was whipping past him, section after section coming by so quickly that the details began to blur and then vanish into the tunnel, while Stephen screamed impotently at the unfeeling metal and the unfeeling Fates that harbored evil and propelled it into the darkness like loving guardians…

A hand came down on his shoulder. He whirled, every single nerve threatening to leap out through his skin.

It was Danny.

Danny was laughing.

“
Don’t you see it? Don’t you see it?
” Danny yelled, pointing at the train, practically doubling over with the force of his laughter.

“
See what
?” Stephen screamed back hysterically. “
What the hell are you laughing about?
”

“
It’s a D train!
” Danny bellowed over the roar of the train. “
D as in Downtown! D as in Death! D as in Decomposition… oh, man, don’t you see what’s going on?
”

Stephen looked at him blankly, dumbly.

“
This is the last stop in Manhattan, stupid! Don’t you know what that means? This train is going to Coney Island, man! This train is going over…
”

But Stephen had already figured it out. He started to laugh. They laughed together.

And as the last car lumbered past them, they saw Joseph framed in the window, of the back door. He appeared to be laughing, too, just before the darkness swallowed him.