From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (59 page)

They hadn
't seen any telephone poles on the way in, but Finch didn't bother pointing that out. Beau already knew, but talking and thinking was better than dying any day of the week.

"
Maybe they've got a mini-bar," he continued. "And a Jacuzzi. Hell, I bet these boys got their own game room. Didn't see any, but that don't mean they ain't there."

"
Turntables and a karaoke machine," Finch added.

"
Yeah, and a waterbed, with pink cushions and silk sheets."

Finch laughed despite the pain.
"Heart-shaped."

Beau snorted. It looked like it hurt.
"Barry White on Dolby surround."

Though the pain was unbearable
, Finch couldn't stem the mirth that rippled through him. "I can't feel my legs."

"
Why would you want to?" Beau asked. "They're not much to look at."

"
Aw shit," Finch said, and his voice cracked. "We failed, man."

"
We thinned the herd," Beau told him. "It's all we've ever done. Tried to reduce the threat, just like in the desert. Certain things just are, you know. Bad things. And nothin' will ever stop them. Even if we'd wiped these fuckers off the planet, there are a million others just like them out there, preyin' on people whenever the mood takes them. We weren't gonna make a difference down here, Finch. No matter what we did."

"
It might have made a difference to us."

"
To you," Beau said. "Not me. This was never my fight. It's like that friend you have when you're in high school whose younger brother gets jumped. The friend organizes a lynch mob and without a second thought you agree to go kick the livin' shit out of a bunch of strangers. You do it because it's important to
someone
, and because maybe the violence appeals to you on some level you prefer to keep hidden, even from yourself."

"
That why you're here?"

"
I'm here because I'm the cheerful type."

"
The hell does that mean?"

"
Means everythin'
about
me's bullshit. A front. I saw what you did in the desert, and I fed you…some speech about it being par for the course in wartime. Well, that may be so but it don't make it right. And I wasn't lecturin' you. I was tryin' to make myself…believe it."

With great effort
, Finch turned his head to look at him. Pine needles pricked his cheek. Beau's eyes were closed.

"
What did you do over there?"

Beau might have shrugged
, or it might have been the shadows around him deepening as the moon slid behind a cloud. "Tried to stay alive. Same as everyone else."

"
You know what's funny?"

"
Do tell."

"
For as long as I can remember I've been pissed off. Only time it got even a little better was when I was with Kara. And still, I pushed her away, let some of that anger rub off on her. Then she broke up with me and I accused her of being cold."

"
That's not funny," Beau said. "Gotta work on your comic timin'."

"
Yeah."

"
I'm bleedin' like a stuck pig," Beau told him. "If I'm gonna get us help, I'd better get my ass up."

Finch pondered this
, and when next he spoke, to tell Beau that for a guy in a hurry, he sure wasn't getting very far, he didn't receive an answer, only the insects in the brush and the birds high in the trees. He listened to them for what seemed like eternity, before he let his eyes drift shut. Peace washed over him, alien and new and he embraced it.

Kara
's face materialized in the dark. He thought about calling her, but realized he didn't have the breath left to power the words, and maybe that was for the best. He had nothing to tell her that she didn't already know.

*

Claire considered hiding, or running, or seeking a back exit, but indecision kept her rooted to the spot. She stood in the room with the monstrous bed, her back to the window, watching as the Sheriff stepped into the hall and made his way toward her. Opposite the window was a door leading outside and she could easily have taken this route while the Sheriff was looking for her, but a chain had been looped around the simple bolt, and a rusted padlock hung from the links. She had already tested it, and it had opened barely enough for her to get her arm through.

"
There you are, Missy," the Sheriff said cheerfully. So cheerfully in fact, that she was struck with sudden doubt. Maybe he found the phone on the road, or at Pete's house, or the Doctor's place? There were any number of ways in which he could have come by it, so why had she immediately assumed the most malevolent one? Still, she refused to let herself relax too much. The last time she'd seen that phone, it had been in Danny's shirt pocket. Now Danny was dead, and the phone was in a Sheriff's car when there was no reason for him to have it. He should have returned it to Danny's mother. And what about the call? The sense she'd had of someone listening?

Hidden behind her back was a length of wire she had snapped off the bed. It was coiled
, but ended in a kinked, three-inch piece that would serve as an adequate weapon with which to buy her time, if it became necessary for her to do so.

The Sheriff was limping
, she noted. This too might give her an advantage if it came to a chase. The gun in his holster, however, kept the odds firmly in his favor, and abruptly, she wished Pete hadn't abandoned her. Not that she blamed him. She had hardly given him a reason to stay.

"
My name's Sheriff McKindrey. I assume you're Claire?"

"
You assume right."

McKindrey continued to pick his way along the debris-filled hallway
, occasionally glancing with distaste at something on the floor. The flickering cruiser lights made his shadow large and jittery on the hallway wall.

"
Your sister sent me to fetch you," he told her. "She's awful worried."

"
I'll bet she is."

Back in the car
, Danny's phone stopped ringing as she snapped her own cell phone shut and slid it into her pocket.

"
Why do you have my boyfriend's phone?" she asked him as he cleared the hall and with visible relief, stepped into the gloomy room.

"
What?"

"
My boyfriend. The people who lived here killed him. I was looking for his phone so I called it. It rang in your car."

"
Of course it did," McKindrey said, with a wide smile, which showed a slight gap between his front teeth. "Papa-In-Gray gave it to me."

Claire frowned.
"Who?"

"
Papa-In-Gray." He nodded his understanding. "Of course, you probably don't even know their names."

Claire felt her chest tighten.
"Names?"

"
The names of the people who hurt you and killed your friends." He stepped closer, but it took work, as he gingerly set the bandaged foot down to gauge how much it was going to hurt to put his weight on it. "Papa-In-Gray's the daddy. Momma-In-Bed's the Momma," he said, indicating the bed. "She's dead now, good riddance to the 'ol bitch. Gave me more than a few nightmares. And of course you met the kids, Isaac and Joshua and Aaron. Matt's the one you killed. Luke's the oldest. They've had a bit of trouble with him. Said he's got notions. Seems more like good sense to me."

"
So you know what they did?"

"
Of course. Papa gave me your wallets and jewelry and phones and such after it was all done."

Claire couldn
't believe what she was hearing. "Why?"

"
Call it a tip for keepin' my big 'ol mouth shut." He grinned. "Hell, the one question folks keep puttin' to me is why I stick around here when there ain't nothin' to stick around for. Usually I just shrug and say 'everyplace needs the law' but that's bullshit. Truth is, and this is between you and me, I stay for the watches, rings, billfolds, gold teeth, radios, all of which is pretty easy to offload if you know who's buyin'. But the best money comes from cars. Oh yeah. They give me a bunch of those. I send them to my stepbrother Willard in Arkansas. He's a bit slow, you understand, but he can move a vehicle in record time. I give him a percentage and enjoy the rest. Makes workin' here quite a treat when you know all those goddamn suits are lookin' at you like you ain't got nothin' when in fact you could buy and sell 'em if you was of a mind to. Been buildin' up quite a nest egg, and while I hadn't figured on retirin' for another few years yet, you getting' away has forced me to rethink things. Kinda annoyed about that to tell the truth, but I know it ain't your fault."

"
Jesus Christ…they
kill
people," Claire said, backing further into the room.

"
Exactly.
They
kill people. I don't."

"
But you're gonna kill me."

McKindrey stopped in the middle of the room. He looked genuinely offended.
"Look here, Missy. I ain't never killed nobody and I don't aim to neither." He brightened as he took another small step in her direction. "Take a look at this…" He rolled up his sleeve and held out his right wrist. "What do you make of that?"

It was Stu
's wristwatch, a Rolex his father bought him for his graduation. Claire clearly recalled him showing it off, turning the back of it up to the light so they could read the inscription on the back:
To my boy. There's no stopping you now, kiddo. Love Dad.

"
That isn't yours," she said, choked with sorrow.

"
Hell, the owner don't need it. Better on my wrist here than in a hole or stuck on some dusty shelf somewhere."

"
You have no right to do this."

"
Probably, but that's the way the world turns, ain't it? No such thing as fair anymore. But hell, you're actin' like I did the killin' myself and I ain't no killer," he said around a smile. "I'm a collector."

Claire moved back until she was pressed against the wall
, her shirt stuck to her skin with sweat. Dust rained down around her, turned to fireflies in the beam from her flashlight. "You're a fucking psycho, just like the rest of them. You might as well be the one cutting people up."

McKindrey raised his hands in a gesture of placation.
"Look, all I'm goin' to do is take you for a ride that's all."

"
A ride where?"

"
Into Mason City, to the state police. They'll make sure you get home."

"
You expect me to believe that you're going to hand me over to the police after just telling me you've been profiting from the murders of all these people over the years?"

McKindrey shrugged
, his smile wide.

"
If you touch me," Claire said. "I'll kill you."

"
Oh c'mon, Missy. I'm the one with the gun." As he spoke he unclipped his holster, pulled out his weapon and drew back the hammer. "Now it's been an unpleasant enough day for me already. Don't make it worse. My foot's killin' me, my nose feels like it's full of fire ants, and all I want is to get home and get drunk, all right? So you'll be doin' me a nice favor if you just come along."

There was less than six feet between them.

She didn't move.

He leveled the gun at her.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"
Well, if you don't, someone else's just gonna come by and be a lot less pleasant about it."

"
Like your friends, those killing fucks you're working for?"

"
Honey," he said sweetly, and closed the distance between them. "I'm done talkin'. Now you're gonna move, and that's all there is to it."

"
What did they do with them?"

"
With who?"

"
My friends."

"
You know that well as I do. Scattered 'em around the doctor's place."

"
What did they do with the
rest
of them?"

McKindrey sighed.
"Buried 'em."

"
Where?"

"
Different places. Some parts here, some in the woods, some out in that field with the dead tree."

That gave Claire pause and for the briefest of moments she experienced a blissful absence of any kind of feeling at all. Sound itself seemed muted
, the room blurring as an image of the field with the wisps of cotton floating upward in the breeze superimposed itself over the present.

Everything isn
't dead
, she thought then.
Only gone
.