The Siege (56 page)

“You know where you’re heading, don’t you?” Donna said, her voice a faint whisper from the back seat. Dale barely heard above the whistling sound of the wind.

“Shut the fuck up, will you?” Hocker snapped, turning to her with an angry leer.

Dale nodded, fixing his eyes unblinkingly on the road as it unraveled in front of his single headlight. Behind him, the light of Rodgers’ car kept pace with him, but he hadn’t gotten any closer.

“Come on, man,” Hocker said. “You can get some more out of this baby. Goose it!”

“I’m doing over seventy as it is,” Dale said, forcing his voice to stay level. “And there’s a hairpin turn not too far ahead. I’d rather not lose it there.”

“If you don’t dust this bastard behind us, we’re all gonna lose it. Well all end up fuckin’ zombies!”

“That’s gotta be worse than going to jail,” Tasha said. “Come on, Hock, put the gun away.” She put her hand out in an attempt to take the gun from Hocker, but he jerked away from her.

“I ain’t going to no jail, and I ain’t going to end up one of those things,” Hocker said. “I can see the gas gauge. We’ve got better than three-quarters of a tank. We can go all night if we have to.”

“And where will we go?” Dale asked. “Even if we manage to lose Rodgers, he’s still going to be alive back in Dyer. He’ll still be doing what he’s been doing. And my daughter’s still there.”

“You think
I
give a sweet shit?” Hocker said, jabbing the gun harder into Dale’s neck. “You lose this guy and drop me off, you can do whatever you want. Call out the National Fucking Guard to nail his ass, for all I care! Right now, you just drive!”

“We’re getting close,” Donna said. She realized that she was, the only local, and so was the only one who knew exactly where the curve was. Dale had only been out here once, when they had checked out the site of Larry’s accident. She had to tell him exactly when Casey’s Curve was coming up. “I think we might be losing him,” Dale said after glancing in the rear view mirror. It certainly looked as though the limo had fallen back a bit.

“Naw,” Hocker said. “He’s just playin’ with our ass.”

The cruiser sped through the night, swinging solidly around each twist in the tree-lined road. When they went over one bump, though, something underneath the cruiser snapped. The rear bumper dropped down and started scraping on the road with a loud, grating noise. Donna looked behind them and saw sparks trailing out from underneath the cruiser.

“Oh, shit!” Dale said when the pursuing headlight suddenly shot forward. For a flickering instant, he had the sensation of standing still as the limo bore down at them. The single headlight became a swimming pool of yellow, filling the rear view mirror.

“Punch it!” Hocker said, close to Dale’s ear.

“You’re coming up on the curve,” Donna said, her voice laced with tension. “You’ve got to slow down for it!”

“You ain’t slowin’ down,” Hocker commanded. “You’ll take it!”

“For Christ’s sake,” Dale said but then they shot over the rise just before the curve. It felt as though all four tires left the road as the cruiser rose, then dropped with a belly-floating bump. The metal dragging behind them hit the road with a loud impact that shook the car. Donna prayed the sparks wouldn’t make the gas tank explode.

In the glare of his single headlight, Dale saw the solid wall of rock suddenly right in front of them. It seemed to leap forward out of the darkness, solid and tall…
instant death
! He jerked hard on the steering wheel, conscious only of the piercing screech of the tires and his instant conviction that, within a fraction of a second, he would be joining his friend, Larry Cole.

“Hold on!” he shouted as the cruiser skidded around the curve, leaving a thick skim of rubber on the asphalt. Time suddenly dilated, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion as the cruiser swung to the left, its tail-end trying to take the lead. Everyone in the car was thrown to the side, but Dale gritted his teeth and held the steering wheel firmly in line. Metal cried out in the dark night as the left rear fender of the cruiser glanced off the sheer rock wall.

Dale quickly straightened out the steering wheel and the front tires held onto the road.
We just nicked it!
he thought triumphantly.

The road straightened out up ahead, and with a bit more pressure on the accelerator, the cruiser shot forward, leaving Casey’s Curve behind them. Dale let his breath out in a roar just as he chanced to look in the rear view mirror. The glow of Rodgers’ headlight was suddenly gone, leaving only thick, impenetrable blackness. But as suddenly as the glow of the headlight switched to darkness, the darkness suddenly blossomed into an orange blast.

“Oh my God!” Dale muttered as his nearly numb brain registered what he had seen. A gentle curve in the road suddenly blotted out the orange glow. By the time Dale could tell anyone else to look behind them, there was nothing to see except the night-stained road.

“Well, all right,” Hocker said, the second person to register that Rodgers’ headlight no longer followed them. “You did it. Either he gave up on the turn or…”

“He didn’t make it,” Dale said as he gently applied the brakes.

“Hey, motherfucker! You don’t stop yet!” Hocker shouted, poking the gun painfully into Dale’s neck.

“Take it easy, will you?” Dale said as he pulled over to the side of the road and, putting the shift into park, draped himself over the steering wheel. He was bathed with sweat, and he wondered when he would be able to take a breath without shuddering. He could barely uncurl his hands from the steering wheel.

“What makes you so goddamned sure?” Hocker snapped, glancing back along the empty road.

“I saw flames,” Dale said, still leaning over the steering wheel.

“Come on, Hock,” Tasha said gently. She put her hand on the gun and tried to take it away.

Hocker resisted and glared at her. “Back off, you
bitch
!” he shouted. “Now, I want you to get moving that-a-way.” He pointed straight ahead down the road. “You get me a good hundred miles away from here and then you can come back and do whatever you want.”

His voice suddenly cut off and was followed by a loud, pained shout. With a sudden flash and explosion, the gun went off close to Dale’s ear. The bullet tore a hole through the cruiser’s door and skimmed off the road with a high-pitched whine.

“Jesus!” Tasha screamed.

Dale tried to say something, but his throat had closed shut. He twisted around in the seat, saw the gun and had sense enough to make a grab for it before the next bullet went through him. He jerked it out of Hocker’s hand, feeling almost no resistance.

Hocker was sputtering with fury and groaning in pain at the same time. Once he had the revolver, Dale sat up and looked into the back seat. Donna had hit Hocker, either on the neck or shoulder; he was doubled over, his face almost on the car floor, covering the side of his head with his hand.

“What’d you do?” Dale said. He found it necessary to shout to hear himself above the ringing sound that filled his ear.

“I didn’t hit him that hard,” Donna said. She was sitting back, away from Hocker, who was using just about every swear word any of them had ever heard.

“My fuckin’ goddamned shoulder, you fuckin’ bitch!” he wailed, stamping both feet on the car floor. “Aww, Jesus! You hit me right where that fucking zombie clawed me! Aww! Jesus H. Christ on a cross!”

“That’ll teach you,” Dale said, still speaking unnaturally loud as he opened the car door and stepped out. He looked back up the dark road and could just barely distinguish a flickering orange glow above the tree line. “Come on. Get out,” he said as he swung open the passenger’s door. “Let me take a look.”

Hocker eased himself out of the cruiser and stood on the side of the road, still doubled up with pain.

“Here,” Donna said, handing him a flashlight through the open door. She had taken it with her from the house and seemed to realize now that she had been clutching it in her hand all during the chase.

Dale clicked it on and, peeling up Hocker’s shirt, directed the beam onto his shoulder. What he saw made him gasp in shock. There were four gouges, running from the base of his neck down over his shoulder blade and around to his side. Each gouge was about a half-inch thick. Some of the blood had dried to a powdery rust color, but the wounds had opened up from Donna’s punch. Fresh blood, mixing with yellowy pus ran in thick streaks down Hocker’s back.

“That doesn’t look good,” Dale said.

“No shit,” Hocker sputtered, still doubled over.

“I think we should get you to the hospital,” Dale said. In the back of his mind was the thought that, if Hocker resisted in any way, he’d use the revolver. What he was going to do was, Hocker be damned, was go back to town and find Angie.

“I don’t need no fuckin’ hospital,” Hocker snarled. He straightened up and pulled his shirt down. The fabric scraped against the freshly opened wound and made him wince. He cried out in pain.

“You will if you don’t get your ass into that cruiser and shut up,” Dale said. “And if you don’t behave yourself, I’ll see if Jeff left a pair of handcuffs around.” It was now his turn to direct the revolver at Hocker, and he enjoyed turning the tables, except that his concern for Angie made the pleasure short-lived.

Hocker stammered, but he was in such obvious pain that Dale wasn’t surprised when he meekly obliged. He grunted as he dropped onto the back seat and pulled the door shut.

Dale got in behind the steering wheel and handed the gun to Tasha. “Make sure he stays quiet,” he said.

Tasha started to protest but then fell silent and sat with one elbow over the back of the seat, the revolver clenched in her fist.

Dale put the cruiser into gear and backed around, heading back toward town. The orange glow he had seen over the treetops was now faded. He had a moment of doubt, that Rodgers had somehow set a trap for them on the curve.
Maybe
, Dale thought,
his shoulders shaking with chills, he’s waiting for us back there and will nail us as soon as we turn the corner.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said, looking nervously out his window. The breeze coming in was chilling, especially on his sweat-drenched neck. He knew, later tonight, he was going to be seriously stiff.

“He ain’t back there,” Hocker offered from the back seat. He kept glaring at Tasha, unable to believe she could turn on him like this. When he could catch her attention, he would flash her his “winning” smile, but she maintained an icy distance. Once they got out of this, and were back on the road Hocker thought, she was going to pay for this!

Driving slowly through the thick night, the road seemed much longer heading back to Casey’s Curve. Dale was expecting, at any moment, to see a single beam of light suddenly snap on and come careening toward them out of the dark. He figured, if they were lucky, they would have about half a second to register it before the impact killed them.

But as he rounded one turn near Casey’s, the glow he thought he had seen suddenly became very real. The surrounding trees were underlit with wickedly glowing flames that brought out, in harsh relief, the silhouette of the smashed and twisted limousine. The spray-painted wall of rock looked like the inside of some huge fireplace.

“Oh, my God,” Donna said, sitting forward and staring at the wreck. “Oh, my
God
!”

Tasha was silent; Hocker let out a slow whistle. All Dale could feel was immense relief as he slowed and then stopped the cruiser a safe distance from the hammering heat of the flames. He tried to see into the crumpled wreck, to determine how many bodies there were.

The limo had to have been moving at least seventy miles an hour when it hit the rock; it looked as though the impact had shortened it by half its length. Broken glass glittered like diamonds in the flickering light, and thick, oily clouds twisted up into the sky. Bent chrome littered the road. The smell of burning rubber was sickening.

Burning rubber
, Dale thought, his stomach doing a quick flip, or worse…
Burning flesh!

“Do you want to get out and make sure that’s Rodgers?” Hocker asked, pointing at the human figure sprawled on the front hood of the burning car.

Rodgers had been propelled through the windshield and lay with his legs still in the car and his torso twisted around so he was facing up, staring blankly at the sky. His clothes were blazing, and it looked as though the heat was peeling away the skin from his face. Dale tried not to imagine that, even in death, Rodgers was grinning at him. This man had somehow conquered death; Dale was prepared to see this burning corpse suddenly lurch up into a sitting position and look at them, a maniacal laugh tearing from its charred throat as he slowly came forward after them.

“You wanna get out and check?” Hocker repeated. “Make sure that’s him.”

Dale snorted and shook his head. “Sure. Why not? You want me to leave the car running when I do?”

Hocker clicked his tongue and sat back heavily in the seat. “Shit, man, I can’t pull one over on
you
.”

Dale chuckled. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”

“How
could
you be?” Hocker muttered.

They sat there a while longer and watched as the flames roared skyward. Hocker, especially, enjoyed the sight. He was thinking this had been a gold mine: two fires in one night! If it wasn’t for the pain in his shoulder, he’d really have enjoyed tonight.