Alarums (30 page)

    At the bottom of the stairs, Bodie looked at Pen. His face was gray. He took her hand. His fingers felt like ice.

    They rushed up the stairs behind Melanie. She led the way along the corridor.

    Pen knew they would find carnage. She felt lightheaded and numb. The lights seemed too dim. When she blinked, an electric-blue aura surrounded Melanie. Pen was nauseous.
Just like Friday night,
she thought,
the mystery writers' meeting, the coroner's shock-show.

    Post-mortem lividity, bite marks on the corpse's buttock, the gray penis of the dead man, fly eggs in the nostril.

    
I've gotta get out of here.

    Fresh air.

    Bodie stopped her at the door of the master bedroom. 'Wait here,' he said.

    Pen leaned against the doorframe, her back to the room. Bodie let go of her hand. He stepped past her. Sliding down, Pen hung her head and stared between her knees at the carpet.

    
I shouldn't,
she thought.
Shouldn't let him face it alone. It'll help him if I'm there.

    She forced herself to stand.

    She heard nothing from inside the room.

    Turning to the doorway, she saw Bodie and Melanie standing side by side. Their backs were toward her. Their bodies blocked her view of whatever they were looking at. Whatever? Joyce.

    Pen walked slowly closer.

    She smelled blood, and gagged. Quickly, she lifted the front of her sweatshirt. She pressed the soft fabric to her nose and mouth. It had a fresh scent that masked the coppery odor of the blood. She stopped gagging. She blinked the tears from her eyes and stepped to Bodie's side.

    Joyce, on a straight-backed chair, gazed at her from a crimson face. She blinked away the blood that dribbled into her eyes from her cut forehead. She was gasping through her nose. A strip of cloth, probably a robe belt, was tied across her mouth.

    'I had to do a little number on her,' Melanie said.

    Bodie tipped the shotgun toward Pen. It was resting on the floor, barrel up. Keeping the sweatshirt over her mouth, she gripped the barrel with her other hand and held the weapon upright while Bodie stepped behind the chair.

    Joyce's feet were tied to the chair legs. Her nightgown clung to her with blood, but Pen couldn't see any other wounds. All the blood, she thought, had come from the cuts on Joyce's forehead.

    If that was all, she ought to recover.

    
Could've been worse,
Pen thought.
A lot worse.

    She looked at Melanie. Melanie was staring at the shotgun. No, she realized. Not at the shotgun.

    
At me with my sweatshirt pulled up.

    A chill squirmed up her back. She tugged the sweatshirt down. Melanie's gaze lifted to her face.

    Pen could hardly believe the hatred in her sister's eyes.

    The gaze shifted away from her as Bodie slipped the cloth from Joyce's mouth. 'What're you doing?' she demanded.

    'For Godsake,' Bodie muttered. He crouched to untie Joyce's hands.

    'Leave her alone.'

    Pen realized that Joyce's mouth was stuffed with something. Stepping closer, she shifted the shotgun barrel to her other hand and bent over the woman.

    'Don't do that,' Melanie warned.

    'Shut up,' Pen said, and dug fingers into Joyce's mouth. She pulled out a sodden rag. A nylon stocking.

    Joyce gasped for breath.

    'You want her to warn Harrison?'

    'Are you all right?' Pen asked.

    'Muh… my face.'

    'Are you hurt anywhere else?'

    'Has a nasty bump on the back of her head,' Bodie said.

    Pen patted the wadded stocking gently against Joyce's forehead. Lifting the nylon away, she looked at the wounds. The letters AM had been carved into her brow. Holding the cloth to the cuts, she scowled over her shoulder at Melanie. 'What the hell is this!'

    'You two are such fucking literary types, figure it out.'

    'I can't get her hands undone,' Bodie said.

    'Why did you do it?' Pen blurted. 'God Almighty, Mel…'

    ' "A" for adultery, "M" for murder.'

    'Why did you do it!'

    'To get her confession, of course.'

    'You idiot! That confession's no good. It's worthless. You tortured it out of her.'

    'She wouldn't write it. I had to make her.'

    'Lying,' Joyce murmured. 'She did this… after. Just… to hurt me.'

    'The confession's no good,' Pen repeated.

    'Too bad,' Melanie said. Lunging sideways, she rammed Pen.

    'Hey!' Bodie yelled.

    Pen's feet tangled. She struck the floor shoulder first and cried out as the shotgun barrel hammered her fingers against the carpet.

    Bodie sprang up from his crouch behind Joyce. He shouted, 'NO!' and flung his hands forward to shove Melanie away.

    Too late.

    The knife (where did that come from?) slashed Joyce's throat and a spray of blood whipped across the front of Melanie's blouse as Bodie's hands smashed her shoulders and sent her stumbling away.

    She landed on her back.

    Pen, getting up, watched Bodie run through the flying blood. He bent over Melanie. 'Give me that!' he yelled. He reached for the knife and drew his hand back fast as Melanie slashed at it. 'Give me that! God! God!' Melanie squirmed and twisted on the floor, kicking at his shins and slashing at him. Bodie kept yelling and trying to snatch her knife hand.

    Pen picked up the shotgun. 'Get out of the way!' she snapped at Bodie.

    He looked at her.

    Melanie's right leg kicked up, her shoe smashing him in the groin. His eyes bulged. Clutching himself, he doubled over. His knees pounded the floor.

    Melanie rolled away from him.

    Pen aimed the shotgun at her as she scrambled to her feet. 'Stop!'

    Melanie walked slowly toward Pen, hunched over, the knife in her right hand, her eyes almost hidden behind hanging ropes of hair. 'Gonna blow me away, sister? Go ahead. Well, do it. It's you or me.'

    Pen backed away from her.

    'I'm gonna cut you up. I'm gonna cut up that gorgeous face for you. I'm gonna cut off your precious tits. Then we'll see, won't we? Think Bodie's gonna want you then? Do you? Huh?'

    The wall stopped Pen's retreat. She flicked the safety off. 'Just stop.'

    'No, no, no, not me.'

    Pen pulled the trigger. The shotgun jerked in her hands. Its roar blasted her ears. A circle of ceiling beyond Melanie's head exploded away. White dust and chunks of plaster fell.

    Melanie grinned. Taking one more step, she gripped the muzzle with her left hand and pressed it to her chest. 'Go ahead, sister. Try again.'

    'Mel… for godsake!'

    Glancing past Melanie's shoulder, she saw Bodie on his hands and knees, trying to get up.

    The barrel flew upward, thrust high by Melanie. In disbelief, Pen saw her sister duck beneath it and drive the knife at her chest. She lurched sideways. A hot streak burned across the skin under her left breast. She rammed out with an elbow. It caught Melanie in the armpit, knocking her out of the way. But she still held the shotgun. She wrenched it from Pen and hurled it to the floor.

    Pen shoved herself off the wall. She tried to dodge past Melanie, hoping to regain the gun, but Melanie rushed ahead to block her way. And slashed. Pen dropped back as the blade whipped across her belly. It snagged and ripped her loose sweatshirt, but missed her skin. Whirling around, she ran for the bedroom door.

    Melanie's feet pounded the carpet close behind her. They stayed behind her as she raced along the corridor.

    'You've had it!' Melanie yelled. 'You've had it!'

    At the top of the stairs, Pen grabbed the newel post and swung herself around it.

    She was three steps down when she was hit. She cried out, more in alarm than pain, as the blade went in. The impact threw her forward. Her feet left the stairs and she flew headlong toward the bottom.

    Bodie staggered across the bedroom, each step wracking him with pain as if pliers were squeezing his testicles. He bent over, groaning, and picked up the shotgun. His ears still rang from the blast.

    Lurching through the doorway, he swung to the left. The corridor was empty. He heard footsteps on the stairs, but saw no one. The wall blocked his view for a few yards. Then it ended, and he threw himself against the railing of the balcony over the living room.

    Melanie, knife raised overhead like a madwoman, was charging down the stairs. Pen was at the bottom, scrambling away on her knees and one hand. Her right forearm, bent at an odd angle, looked broken. The back of her sweatshirt had a slick oval of blood.

    'Mel!' Bodie yelled.

    She didn't stop. She was halfway down the stairs.

    Pen, now on her feet, stumbled toward the foyer, her broken arm flapping.

    Bodie jacked a shell into the shotgun chamber.

    Melanie, hearing the noise, looked over her shoulder.

    'Stop!' he cried out.

    He peered down the sighting ramp. The bead at the muzzle's end wavered back and forth across Melanie's neck. He noticed her choker. A memory flashed through his mind of the time in bed when she was naked except for one of those chokers and he started to take it off and she clutched her ears to hold her head on.

    His finger eased its pressure on the trigger.

    'Just stay put!' he ordered. 'Don't move! Drop the knife!'

    Her head turned away.

    Bodie shifted his eyes to the right. Pen was at the front door, pulling it open.

    Melanie looked back at him, then at the door again.

    'Don't!' he shouted.

    She raced down the stairs.

    Bodie tracked her with the shotgun, knowing that a hit would probably kill her, hating to kill her, wondering if Pen had enough headstart, then swinging the muzzle well ahead of Melanie and firing. The shotgun leapt and kicked his shoulder as the blast slapped his eardrums. The front door, left ajar by Pen, crashed shut as the pellets punched through its bottom.

    He ran for the stairway, grimacing each time a foot landed and sent a new shockwave of pain from his testicles.

    Melanie reached the front door at the same moment as he started down the stairs.

    Running had hurt, but pounding his way down the steps was glaring white agony.

    Melanie threw open the door and dashed out.

    Bodie worked the pump-action. The spent shell tumbled away.

    He leaped down the final three stairs, crying out as his feet struck the floor and pain exploded through his body. He hobbled across the foyer and out the front door.

    Melanie, her white blouse a pale bobbing target, was halfway across the dark yard. The dim, running shape of Pen was not far ahead of her.

    When Pen reached the closed gate, Melanie would get her.

    No question.

    'Stop!' Bodie shrieked, shouldering the gun.

    What if some of the pellets go past her and get Pen?

    He aimed at the center of Melanie's back. His finger tightened on the trigger.

    Pen was one stride from the gate.

    The gate crashed open, smashing her, hurling her aside.

    A man charged into the yard, hunched over as if he had just thrown a body-block against the gate. He straightened up abruptly as Melanie, not changing course to fall upon Pen, flew at him.

    Harrison.

    Harrison had raped Pen.

    Bodie held fire.

    The man put out both hands to stop Melanie. He yelled, 'Hey!' Then she hit him, driving the knife into his chest as the force of her impact carried him backward to the walkway. Melanie dropped on top of him.

    Even from the porch, Bodie heard the thunk of his head striking the concrete.

    He ran toward the sprawled shapes.

    Harrison, on the bottom, didn't move.

    Melanie, on top of him, moved a lot.

    Her arm did.

    Punching the knife into his body, yanking it out, stabbing him again and again until Bodie stopped her with a quick stroke of the shotgun butt.

    He dragged the shotgun beside him as he staggered over to Pen. Letting it fall to the grass, he knelt down next to her. She lay on her back, panting, clutching the wound beneath her breast.

    'How bad are you?'

    As if it didn't matter, she shook her head. 'What happened?' she gasped.

    'Mel… I think she killed Harrison. I knocked her out.'

    Groaning, Pen struggled to sit up. Bodie pressed her shoulders gently to the ground. 'I think your arm's broken.'

    'Tell me about it.'

    'Just rest. I'll call the police.'

    'No. Help me up.'

    'Pen…'

    'Please.'

    He pulled her by the shoulders. When she was sitting, she hooked her left arm around his neck. He clutched her sides, just beneath the armpits, and lifted her. She was very heavy at first, then weightless as her legs took over. 'Okay,' she muttered. Bodie held onto her arm, but found that she needed no support as she led him back to the motionless bodies. 'Would you get her off him?'

    Crouching, Bodie pulled gently at Melanie until she rolled away from Harrison. As one of her hands flopped to the ground, she moaned. Her eyes stayed shut.

    Pen sank to her knees beside Harrison and stared at him.

    Bodie, stepping around Melanie, squatted near his head. The man's eyes were closed, his mouth hanging open. The knife hilt protruded from his chest.