The Siege (37 page)

“You’ll regret this, Mr. Harmon!” a voice suddenly shouted, cutting through the night and echoing all around. “You’ll regret this dearly!”

Dale’s lungs were burning, and his mind was numb with terror and grief over what had become of Larry Cole; but as they ran, he managed to say to Donna, “Don’t worry!… He’s just trying to scare us!”

“He’s doing a… damned… good job,” she said, breathlessly.

They made it down to the road and ran furiously back to the parked car. Dale’s hands were shaking wildly as he fumbled to get the keys from his pants pocket and into the door lock. “Hell of a time to worry about locking the car doors!” he shouted at himself.

“Hurry! Hurry!” Donna yelled. She was looking back at the house, now all lit up as brightly as if for Christmas. Around one side of the house, she saw a dark, stumbling figure heading toward the road with lurching strides. When the figure stepped out into the light, she gasped.

Dale finally got the key into the slot, popped the lock, and swung the door open. One hand reached to open Donna’s door as the other fumbled the key into the ignition.

“Don’t choke it out,” Donna said as she dropped onto her seat and slammed her door shut. She locked it, although she was convinced it would do her little good if that
thing
ever caught up with them. She could see it getting closer to the road, but it seemed to be running with little purpose, darting this way and that, like a bloodhound searching for a scent.

Dale stepped down hard on the accelerator as he cranked the key, and the car mercifully started right up. The engine whined as he floored the gas and popped the clutch. In a shower of dirt and leaves, the car spun out onto the road, its tires squealing as they left twin streaks of black rubber on the tar.

Both Dale and Donna were panting, their lungs burning and their legs aching from their sudden dash. Dale’s relief at getting away was so overwhelming as he sped down Mayall Road toward Main Street that it all suddenly struck him as extremely funny.

What they had seen in Rodgers’ Funeral Home was… funny!

What was happening to the people of Dyer was... funny!

These people couldn’t even die and make an end of it. Instead, as in life, they ended up still working in the potato fields… forever! And that was… simply hilarious!

“Dale…” Donna’s voice said, cutting into his thoughts like a rusty razor blade.

“Huh? What?” He shook his head and tore his eyes away from the road ahead. Curled around the steering wheel, his fingers felt as though they would never straighten out. That, too, struck Dale as funny.

I’m losing it!
his mind screamed.
I’m heading straight off the deep end!

“I said I think we’d better try to find Winfield,” Donna said, her voice trembling almost to the breaking point. “Rodgers knows it was us, and unless you want both of us to end up like Larry…” She cut herself short, and Dale saw her tremble with the thought.

“I know, I know,” he said, forcing his mind to calm down.
Take it easy!
he told himself.
Let what you’ve seen absorb slowly, and then maybe it will start to make sense
.

He automatically snapped on his turn signal for the turn by the town hall to the police station. Just as he made the turn, he saw a small figure dart into a doorway, away from the sweep of headlights.

“Hey!” Donna said, twisting to look behind them. “Didn’t that look like Lisa Grant? Mrs. Appleby’s granddaughter?”

Dale shook his head quickly. “No. What would she be doing out this time of night? I just hope to hell Winfield’s at the station!”

VII

“I’
m sorry,” the desk officer said. The nameplate on the front of the desk read: “Officer on Duty—Sgt. Ernie Brooks.” He was speaking into the telephone and nodded a greeting when Dale and Donna burst into the police station. Donna didn’t recognize his name from when she was growing up, but she figured he was probably one of the Brooks boys whose family lived out on Pole Hill Road. Most likely, he had been a few years behind her in school.

“I understand that,” Officer Brooks continued, “but you have to understand that I’m a bit short-handed. I can’t send anyone out to look for her until the patrol officer gets back from the call he’s on presently.” He paused to look at Donna and Dale, rolling his eyes ceilingward. “I understand that you’re upset… I know, but I can’t leave the station unattended, now, just to go… I understand. Yes, I will. Thank you.”

With that, he hung up and, rubbing his forehead with the flat of his hand, said, “Damn! For a slow Monday night, things sure as hell are jumping. What can I do for you?”

Dale raked his fingers through his hair and hurriedly tried to compose himself. If Donna’s looks were any gauge, they must look like quite the pair, Dale thought, standing there disheveled and panting, with sweat glistening on their faces.

“I was hoping Jeff might be on duty tonight,” Dale said. He had to fight the urge to burst out laughing when he considered what Winfield’s reaction would be when they told him what they discovered at Rodgers’ or that
Larry Cole
had attacked them! At least he still had the tape, the only concrete evidence that this all wasn’t some wild hallucination or nightmare.

Brooks shook his head and took a sip of coffee. “Jeff’s on days this week,” he said. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Dale opened his mouth, about to spill the entire story in a rush; but then he felt Donna’s hand tighten on his, so instead he shook his head. “Uh… No, I guess not. We had some personal business with him.”

They started to turn for the door when Brooks stood up behind the desk. “You’re sure I can’t help you?” he asked.

The expression on his face was sincere, but Dale thought right away there was no way he would be able to convince this man what they had seen was real. He and Donna simultaneously shook their heads.

“Well, when he left here,” Brooks said, “he said he was going to head out to check… Damn! I can’t recall where it was he said he was going… out to check somebody’s house. If he was on-duty, I’d have logged it, but… Anyway, after that, I figure he’d head on home if he didn’t stop at Kellerman’s for supper, first.”

“Could you call him at home?” Donna asked.

Brooks shrugged, picked up the phone, and quickly dialed the number from memory. He waited what seemed like an awfully long time to Dale, then with another shrug, hung up the receiver.

“No answer. Your best bet is to check down at Kellerman’s. You can tell whether or not he’s there ’cause his cruiser’ll be parked out front.”

“Thanks a lot,” Dale said as he turned on his heel and left. Donna followed close behind him. At the exit, as a precaution, they both stopped cold and peered out into the darkness. They were expecting at any moment to see a dark figure shamble toward them across the parking lot.

Dale opened the door a crack and looked along both sides of the building. “Looks okay to me,” he said.

“You folks all right?” Brooks shouted from down the hallway.

Dale glanced to the right and saw a water fountain. “Just getting a drink, officer.” To convince him, Dale flipped the fountain on and off a few times. “You ready?” he asked, looking at Donna.

She was standing at the door, her face pressed against the glass as she looked out on the night. With a quick nod, she knocked the door open with her hip, and they both hurried across the parking lot to Dale’s car. The station door slammed shut behind them with a loud
clang
.

Dale chanced a quick glance over his shoulder, and he saw a flurry of motion in the darkness near the side of the building; but he wasn’t about to go over and check it out. He glanced quickly into the back seat, saw that it was empty, then unlocked Donna’s door and went around to the driver’s side. Just as he was sliding in behind the steering wheel, he saw something move up the stairs by the station door. A shifting reflection made it look as though the glass door had swung open and shut again. He started up the car and cut a tight circle and drove around toward the front of the building.

“So…” Dale said as he slowed for the left onto Main Street. “Where do we go from here?”

Donna was silent for a moment, and when she responded, it was with nothing more than a tight squeak. Dale turned to her and immediately saw what the problem was. Heading straight toward the side of the car was a pair of glaring headlights.

“Mother-humper!” Dale shouted as he slammed the accelerator to the floor. The oncoming car darted out at them from the Baptist Church parking lot with cobra-like swiftness. With a squeal of tires, Dale’s car shot forward just before impact, and as he gained speed going down Main Street, he saw, in the rear view mirror, the long, black car swerve and straighten out.

“He’s after us,” Dale saw, setting his mouth in a firm line as he sped down Main Street. His mind clicked faster than the cylinders of this car

Where the hell are the cops now, when you need them?
Dale thought bitterly. As a matter of fact, where the hell was
anyone
? The entire town looked deserted, and it was only eleven o’clock. Had Rodgers known they were at the station and had just waited there for this chance? Or had he just been out cruising, waiting to, literally, bump into them?

“This is your neck of the woods,” he said to Donna. “Where the hell can I go where I can shake him off our tail?”

Donna grunted and pointed to the blinking yellow light up ahead. “Turn left there. Maybe we can outdistance him there. The road’s going to get a bit rough, but it doesn’t have the twists and turns Route 2-A has.”

Dale took the turn fast, and he felt a swelling of satisfaction that his car held the road firmly. When he glanced at the gas gauge, though, his heart skipped a beat. There was only a quarter of a tank left; if this turned into a long chase, they were going to end up sputtering to a pitiful conclusion somewhere on a dark, deserted road.

“Where does this take us?” Dale said. His heart thumped in his chest when he saw two circles of yellow light swing around the corner behind them. It was difficult to judge the distance, but it sure as hell looked as though those headlights were closing the distance…
fast
!

“This is Burnt Hill Road,” Donna said breathlessly. “After a stretch of houses and a few farms, it gets pretty woodsy. After about—I don’t know, ten or fifteen miles, it connects with Town Line Road. We can either circle back around toward town or go south.”

“Go south,” Dale said with a grim laugh. “I think maybe I should have taken your advice about leaving when I could have.”

“Just fucking
drive
!” Donna said, still looking back at the following car.

“I’ve got a good lead, now if I can just shake him.”

Donna made a deep-throated sound and shook her head as she watched the car behind them. It looked to her as though it was slowly but steadily closing the distance. She tried to block from her mind the image of herself, stretched out on one of Rodgers’ marble slabs while he injected her veins. “No!” she said, closing her eyes and clenching her fists tightly.

Dale was having a hell of a time, keeping his eyes focused on the road as it unfolded in front of his headlights. The houses and open fields, just as Donna had said, soon gave out, and they were enfolded by the thick, black walls of forest on both sides of the road. Donna was also right about the road; although it was relatively straight, the potholes and bumps made Dale’s teeth rattle. The only comforting thought was that the road was probably doing more damage to the heavier-bodied limo.

“Can you go any faster?” Donna asked, her voice so tight she didn’t sound like herself.

“Not if I’m going to keep us on the road.”

As soon as he said that, Donna again saw in her mind what she wished to God she could forget: Larry Cole’s dead, smiling face as he looked up from his coffin and started coming after them!

Dale expertly negotiated the road, taking each curve with a smooth, steady twist of the steering wheel. If he wasn’t exactly leaving the limo in the dust, it at least wasn’t running them down like an eighteen-wheeler over a rabbit. The only problem he saw was the gas! He glanced at the speedometer with trepidation: Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight miles per hour!
These roads weren’t designed for this kind of speed
, he thought.

Both cars sliced through the darkness as though sucked forward by their cones of yellow light. Just as he was rounding a curve, Dale saw approaching headlights. His first thought was that Rodgers had signaled ahead, and this was someone aiming to cut them off. But as he whizzed past the oncoming car, he gasped with surprise when he saw the black and white designs of a cop’s cruiser.

“Rodgers can’t touch us now,” Dale said. He considered slowing, when he saw the cruiser’s brake lights flash as the cop slowed for his own turn. By the time he had started his turn, though, Rodgers’ limo had also streaked past him. Dale knew that was their only chance. The cop would take Rodgers first.
The devil take the hindmost!
he thought. All the cop had to do was delay Rodgers only a few seconds, then they were home free.

“He’s got him!” Dale said joyfully when he saw the cop’s blue lights winking off and on in his rear view mirror.