Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror (19 page)

Nina couldn't see the wreckage of Clown Mask's car. But she could smell it, the acrid smoke filling the night air.

“Is he . . . dead?” she asked, hopefully.

“No,” he said, and again there was a chuckle in his voice. “He can't have gotten far. Once help comes for you, I'll look for him.”

Nina tensed. “You should go. You should look for him now, before he gets away. Don't worry about me, I'll be all right.”

“Hey,” her rescuer said, laughing now. “You put your life on the line for me back there. Hanging with you until the ambulance comes is the least I can do, Nina.”

She blinked, trying to remember. Had she saved his life? Oh, right. The Night Hunter. Clown Mask had been shooting at him, and she'd steered the car into the trees. The Night Hunter must have pulled her from the burning car, and he was here with her, now, waiting for the ambulance. She had finally met him. Only—

“How,” she said, blinking with confusion, “do you know my name?”

He didn't say anything for a beat.

“Your wallet,” he said. “Sorry. I looked through it. I wanted to know to whom I owed my life.”

“How did you know?” she asked. “About me? That I was in the car with . . . him?”

“I heard about the kidnapping over the police scanner,” he said. “I picked the two of you up as he merged onto Ninety-five. It was pretty easy. You were the only ones going a hundred miles an hour. That was brave, what you did. Driving the car into the trees when he started shooting.”

“He was . . . he said he was going to take me with him,” Nina said. She didn't want to go into detail. Looking into those blue eyes—as cold as the air around her—she could see that she didn't have to. The mouth beneath the formfitting rubber mask, the only part of him that wasn't swathed in black, set into a firm line. He knew. He knew exactly what she meant.

The pain in her head was pulsating. The smoke from the burning car seemed to have seared her lungs, though she knew he'd pulled her away in time. Finally, Nina added, “Besides, he was shooting at you. You're not bulletproof . . .” She thought of the song. ” . . . are you?”

“Sort of,” he said, and tapped his chest, which made a strange echoing sound. “Kevlar body armor. So, next time, don't ram into any trees on my account. No need. Though I do appreciate it.”

His mouth twisted into a grin, convincing Nina that without the mask, he'd be handsome. Handsome, but also frightening—there was a considerable breadth of shoulder beneath the black body armor, not to mention the fact that his chest seemed about half a mile wide.

Still. For a moment, Nina saw something warm in those icy blue eyes.

And then she heard the siren and saw the red-and-white flash.

“Looks like your ride's here,” he said, and she could feel him gently lowering her head. “I've got to go. I'm not particularly well liked by the local authorities. Besides, I have to go look for the driver of this illegally parked vehicle over here and have a few words with him.”

“Wait,” Nina said, her heart speeding up.

“You'll be all right, Nina,” he assured her, squeezing her hand. “I've left flares so they'll know how to find you.”

“Not that,” Nina said. She could feel the darkness closing in again, but she fought against it. “Who are you? I don't even know.”

“Oh,” he said, with a smile, as voices sounded in the thick tangle of woods around them. “I think we'll see each other again.”

And then he was gone, just as the first emergency service worker stepped into the clearing into which he'd carried her, and cried, “Miss? It's all right, miss, we're here now.”

For a few minutes Nina wasn't sure he'd ever even been there. She thought she might have imagined the whole thing.

Except that later, as they were loading her onto the ambulance, one of the EMS workers lifted the edges of the thick black blanket that had been wrapped so securely around her, and asked, “Where did this come from? It's not one of ours.”

And then Nina saw, at the same time that everyone else on the scene did, that it wasn't a blanket at all.

“That's a cape,” said one of the ambulance drivers.

“You don't think—” one of the firemen began, but another cut him off.

“Don't start.”

“We weren't the first on the scene,” said another. “Someone pulled her out of the car, stopped her bleeding, and laid those flares.”

Nina would have told them. She would have said who it was, and gladly.

But she was too busy thinking about something else. One of the EMTs had asked her for her ID, and when she'd reached for her wallet, she realized she'd left it back at the mall, along with her purse, her cell phone, and everything else she'd brought with her to work that night.

So the Night Hunter had lied about how he'd known her name. He'd known her name because he'd known
her
. He'd known her because . . .

. . . she knew him. They'd met before.

Of course. Those eyes. Those icy blue eyes from all those photos in the newspaper. Those blue eyes that, far into their depths, had hidden wells of warmth.

She'd know them anywhere.

And he was right: They would be seeing each other soon. Tomorrow night, at Lauren van der Waals's party.

And this time, Nina wouldn't feel weird about walking up and saying hi.

▼ WALTER SORRELLS ▼

 

 

 

 

 

M
arlon's phone vibrated as the third tumbler clicked.

He looked at his phone. It was Mom. Great.

He thumbed the green button. “What,” he whispered, still twisting the knob on the safe with his other hand.

“It's your mother. Couldn't you be a little more polite when you answer the phone?”

“I know who it
is
,” he whispered. “What do you want? I'm kinda busy here.” He glanced at his watch. Eight thirty-seven. Time was running out. It was an antique Mosler Model 37B, the kind they used in banks back in the old days. In a perfect world he would have drilled it. But drills made too much noise. The place where they were doing the job—the headquarters of International Logicorp—was patrolled by well-trained security guards and protected by all kinds of motion sensors and sound sensors and heat detectors . . .

“My book club's running late,” his mom said. “You think you can pick up your brother from chess team practice?”

Marlon sighed. “Mom, I'm
busy
!”

“Doing what? Doing
what
?”

“Okay okay okay okay okay,” he hissed. Among the other important things that she didn't remember about today, apparently she didn't even remember that he was on a job. “I'll get Ray-Ray. God!”

Marlon closed his phone, wiped his brow on his sleeve. Chess team! For godsake.

His fingers were cramped and tired from slowly twisting the dial on the safe. He was monitoring the sound of the mechanism through earphones. But he also had an electronic monitor with a little gauge on it that twitched at the tiniest sound. The Mosler was a beautifully made safe, old-school craftsmanship, with amazingly quiet tumblers. Only a real master could crack it by ear.

“Who was that?” Irving said.

“Can we be quiet, Irving?” Marlon said. “I'm trying to concentrate.”

“Whatever.” Irving was a tall old guy, like forty or fifty, who sat on the desk swinging his legs aimlessly. Marlon wasn't sure why his father had sent Irving along on this job. Marlon could have done this one by himself.

Marlon waggled his fingers, trying to get the kinks out, then began working on the safe again, slowly twisting the dial. He was close now. One more number and they could get the stuff and get out of here.

After a few minutes Irving hissed, “Hey. Guards!”

Marlon clicked off his flashlight and froze, his heart going into overdrive. The guards were only supposed to come around once an hour! Had somebody tipped them off?

The footsteps grew closer and closer. There were two of them, talking. That was a good sign. If they had been tipped off, they'd have their guns out and would be moving silently. Still . . .

The footsteps stopped. He could see two shadows in the band of light that came through the crack underneath the door. They were standing right in front of the office, not fifteen feet from where he was crouched!

His dad had assured him this was going to be a big score. If he pulled this one off, his dad swore that he wouldn't have to do any of this crap again. This one job would pay for college, the full ride.

Marlon had been admitted to Princeton in the fall. But the financial aid didn't cover everything. Even after the loans and the grants, he was going to have to come up with eighteen grand every single year. Eighteen grand! How could anybody afford the place?

Outside the room, one of the guards said, “What's that? Did you leave that there?”

“No,” the other guard said. “It wasn't here before.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I'm sure.”

“Well, open the door, you idiot. Something's not right here.”

“I don't have the keys.”

“I thought you had the keys.”

“I thought
you
had the keys!”

“Do I have to do everything around here?”

The two guards walked away, bad-mouthing each other. They didn't sound very worried.

But still. He wasn't sure what they'd seen out there in the hallway. Maybe Irving left something out there. The guy was so sloppy. Marlon never could figure out why his father kept Irving on in his crew. Marlon's dad was the kind of guy who always made sure every detail was right.
Every
detail.

Bing!
The elevator bell sounded. Then the elevator doors closed and the voices of the two security guards disappeared.

“We gotta clear out, kid,” Irving said. “They're onto us.”

Marlon felt sick. He was close.
So
close!

“No. I'm almost there.”

“Kid, your old man'll kill me if I let you get pinched.”

“No!” Marlon kept working the dial, eyes glued to the gauge on the monitor.

“Whaddaya mean,
no
?”

“That's my tuition in there. That's my ticket out of this crap!”

“Crap? You know what your old man went through to teach you everything you know? Safes? Explosives? Locks? Alarms? Your family has been in this business for three generations. Your old man is a master. You lucky little punk, he's already taught you more than I learned in—”

“Shh!”

Marlon kept turning the knob. He wanted to rush. But he knew you couldn't rush a thing like this. Irving was right about one thing, his father
had
taught him well. At age sixteen Marlon knew more about safecracking than most people learned in a lifetime. All those hours his father had drilled him, tested him, taught him. The short-cuts, the techniques.

It all comes down to intuition, though,
his father always said.
Some got it, some don't. And, son—you've got it.
It used to make his heart swell with pleasure when his father said stuff like that.

But now? Now it made him all queasy and sick. He just wanted to go to college like a normal teenager. All this sneaking around and breaking into places had seemed fun when he was a kid, with no worries about jail or anything. But today was his birthday. Strictly speaking, he turned seventeen in . . . well . . . in less than an hour. Which meant that by the time he finished this job, he'd be old enough to get sent up to the Big House. Grown-up jail, bro, that was no joke.

Irving started pacing up and down, staring at the stopwatch. He knew exactly how long it would take for the guards to get back. Everything had been timed down to the last second. It was a two-minute-and-twenty-second walk from the security office down on Floor B to the office they were in. Round-trip—four minutes, forty seconds.

His phone rang. Mom again.

“Jeez!” he said.

“It's your mother,” his mother said.

“I know! What!”

“Ray-Ray just called. He's standing outside the school right now. How
could
you?”

Crap. He'd forgotten all about Ray-Ray. “I'll be there soon, Mom. God!”

“You're so touchy today! Why are you so touchy?”

He hung up.

Why was he so touchy?
Because you forgot my birthday, Mom. You and Dad and Ray-Ray, you all forgot my birthday.
Seventeen. The big one. Here he was cracking a Mosler 37B in the executive boardroom of International Logicorp when any normal kid would be at the frickin' Olive Garden, shoveling a big plate of pasta in their face and opening presents while all their normal friends sat around laughing and joking, without a care in the world.

It wasn't right.

Chess team. Man, that chafed his ass. Had
Marlon
ever gotten a chance to be on the chess team? Or play Little League? Or be in a school play?
Hell
no! All these years his father had been pushing him and pushing and pushing him, training him night and day, making him memorize a million locks and safes and alarm system schematics, building special tools in the machine shop, practicing his lock-picking skills—it never ended!
Oh, Marlon, you're so smart and talented and blah blah blah blah blah!
All these expectations, all this pressure. It wasn't fair! It was like it never occurred to the old man that a kid might want to be something other than a freakin' master criminal.