Inanimate (40 page)

“
What about Andy William’s life
huh?
You
didn’t care as much about him?”

Basket’s words
were interspersed
with laughter, almost as if someone else was talking through his
giggles. The grinning clown aimed the gun at the mayor’s crotch and
thought out loud.

“
How do you work this
thing?”

Asking simply to feed
his own sick sense
of humor, Basket squeezed the trigger, shooting the mayor in the
upper thigh.

“
Oops!”

The clown
fired off three more rounds into
the mayor’s legs.

“
Oh God! I’m so sorry! Let
me get those out for you!”

As Shannahan
cried out in pain, the rest of
the building was fleeing thanks to the loud gunfire. Basket jaunted
over to the desk where a gold letter opener lay. Shannahan was even
too lazy to open his own mail by hand.

“
Ah-ha”
exclaimed the clown as he grabbed the
letter opener and headed back towards the mayor.

Shannahan tried to push back away from the
advancing clown but he was not fast enough. Basket leaped forward
and thrusted the tool into the mayor’s right shoulder. Then he
pulled it out and rammed it into his left arm. The pain seared
through Shannahan’s entire body, causing more tears.

“
Stop, please
stop!”

But Basket had no intention of
stopping.

“
What?” the clown
asked innocently “I
only want to help get the bullets out?”

Basket
grabbed the man’s leg and thrusted
the tool into one of his open wounds.

“
I love
fishing
…” the
clown said casually humming a tune over Shannahan’s
screams.

With a
flick he popped out a single bullet
from Shannahan’s leg.

“
One down; three to
go!”

Helpless Shannahan could handle no more
pain.

“
No!” he
cried “I didn’t kill Andy
Williams!”

“
But you didn’t punish those who
did”
came the
voice from within Basket.

“
Punish
them
then!” Shannahan yelled with the last of
his strength.

“
I intend to
” came the voice as Basket burst
into a fit of laughter.

The clown
rolled the man onto his front,
grabbed his collar and his belt simultaneously then aimed his head
towards the window. Basket started running, sliding Shannahan
across the carpet. Gathering great speed, he used Shannahan’s head
as a battering ram, letting him go only inches away from the large
window. With a great smash, Shannahan’s head burst through the
glass on a direct course with the street. The concrete met his
skull first, as the rest of his body crumpled on top. Dozens of
horrified onlookers watched as their Mayor slammed into the
sidewalk before them. At least now they knew where the gunshots
were coming from. In the quick five minutes since the gunshots were
first heard, the second 911 call was being placed by a dozen
passers-by.

“
Sheriff!
Those things got Shannahan! His
secretary too!” Lynch’s words were strong. Oates wasn’t so bothered
about Shannahan but poor Margie had nothing to do with this. In
fact, Oates always got the feeling that she hated the mayor as much
as he did. He did not condone any of the murderous goings on in
Staunton but he wasn’t surprised to hear Shannahan was gone. He
wasn’t sorry either.

“
There’s a bigger problem
Sheriff…” continued Lynch “Now this thing is completely public. He
was thrown out his office window; a lot of people saw
it.”

Oates
closed his eyes; he just spent the
last half hour talking to his own cops about keeping this close to
the chest. Now Shannahan had become pavement pizza on the main
street. That made things difficult for him.

“
How did Margie go?” Oates
asked.

“
Bludgeoned with a coffee pot. I
found her lying in the break room. There was coffee and blood
everywhere.”

“
Ok Deputy, I’m gonna need you
back at the station right away, we’re gathering up the last of
the
names on
the list. There aren’t many left now though. We’ve got to wait this
thing out. I’ve left Brady in charge until it’s over; the boys know
what they’re doing.”

“
Ok Sheriff, I’ll head over as
soon as I get this mess
under control.”

The Sheriff
paused a second before
speaking.

“
Be safe Deputy.”

“
This
is it, this is the address the
Sheriff gave me” Jacobs peered out the window at the large house on
the exclusive street.

“
Ok, let’s go
.”

The two men
exit
ed the
vehicle and walked up to the large house in front of them. Jacobs
knocked on the door but nobody answered so he decided to try
announcing himself.

“
Police, open up
please
!”

But still there was nothing. Looking
around, Matthew noticed there was a car in the driveway so he
jumped off the stoop and walked round onto the lawn, peering in
through the living room window. Right away he saw Jessica sitting
having a tea party with her dolls.

“
The little girl’s in the living
room
”

Matthew
yelled to Jacobs. The cop drew his
gun; he knocked one last time before using one solid boot to kick
the door in. His gun poised for action, Jacobs scanned the hallway
for signs of intruders.

“
Hello? Mr. Ellis? Mrs.
Ellis?”

Getting no response he
cautiously
headed to the living room. Matthew slipped past him and
headed for Jessica, attempting to get information from her quickly
so they could leave quicker.

“
Hey. Do you know where your
parents are?”

Without bothering to
look up Jessica
answered.

“
They’re in their
bedroom
.”

Jacobs interpreted the girl’s cold
mannerisms as trauma symptoms and felt sorry for her.

“
I’ll check; you stay with
her
,” said
Jacobs as he left the room.

Taking the stairs with extreme
caution, Jacobs
had seen the damage these creatures could do; he didn’t
want to end up on a slab any time soon. The second level of the
house was quiet. Jacobs was finished calling out names, his gut
told him no one was going to answer. Jacobs’ pushed open the first
door at the top of the stairs. It was the bathroom, and it was
empty. Moving further down the hall he came to another door. He was
thankful the Ellis’ family had soft carpets so he could approach
silently. Pushing open this door he stepped inside, gun at the
ready, but this room was empty too. The third door had a sticker on
it that read “Jessica’s Room.” Jacobs did not even bother opening
this one. This left only one remaining door. Quickly, he crept up
to it and grabbed the knob. While holding on to the cold brass he
raised his foot and placed it against the door. With a solid boot
he pushed hard, allowing the door to swing open while also allowing
him to fall into a strong stance with his gun poised. The master
bedroom was a room painted in blood. Jessica’s parents stared back
at him from the bed, their faces frozen in terror. Throats cut wide
explained the quantity of blood but didn’t explain how the walls
were covered so evenly in it. The bodies were sitting up straight,
fully clothed on the bed. These were not natural sleeping poses.
Cussing out loud, Jacobs turned to head downstairs. He felt no need
to check their pulses or even call in their deaths right now.
Jacobs was not overly cautious as he headed down the hall and back
down the stairs, after all, he had checked all the rooms. Well, all
except Jessica’s and that door was closed. There wasn’t going to be
anything coming at him through a closed door. The thought did occur
to him that the killers could have been hiding in Jessica’s room
but he was not prepared to risk Jessica’s safety by tackling them
himself. If he were to be overcome, she would be left with a
cowardly, unarmed Matthew for protection. Jessica sat on the couch
beside Matthew clutching her doll.

“
We’ve gotta go”
said
Jacobs.

“
You didn’t
find her parents?”

“
No, I did
!”

“
Oh”
said Matthew, reading between the
lines.

“
Come on sweetie” Jacobs
said, thrusting his
hand into hers.

The three of them
head
ed out
the house fast. Jessica held Betsy tight.

CHAPTER 35

MacNamee’s cell phone
rung loudly in the
car. The day was wearing on now; night would be heading into
Staunton in a short while. Oates drove carefully, unwilling to add
to the death toll with reckless driving. MacNamee answered his
phone, allowing Jacobs to inform him of the pickup of Jessica
Ellis.

“
We got the little girl”
he
said.

“
What about her
parents?”

Jacobs
looked in the rear view at the little
girl holding her doll, he couldn’t say too much because she was in
the car.

“
Um, no luck there” he
said, hoping the
innocuous answer would not make the little girl suspicious, while
also hoping MacNamee would understand.

“
Jesus” MacNamee
responded, he did
understand.

“
Who’s left on the list?”
Jacobs
asked
quickly, changing the subject.

MacNamee skimmed through the list he had
with him.

“
Sandy Allen, I think she’s one
of Matthew’s friends
.”

Jacobs
turned to Matthew.

“
Do you
know a Sandy Allen?”

“
Yeah, I’ll call her”
Matthew
said,
aware of why Jacobs was asking.

“
Matthew’s calling her” Jacobs
relayed to MacNamee “we can pick her up then meet you at the
station.”

Sandy’s phone
rung eight times
before it was picked up.

“
Hello?”
came the voice down the
line.

“
Hello
, Sandy?”

It was Sandy’s voice but something was
wrong with it.

“
Sandy
can’t come to the phone right
now.”

Matthew
closed his eyes, he felt sick hearing
that voice again. He remembered Dummy’s scratchy voice from when he
was impersonating Glenda.

“
What
have you done with her?”

Dummy’s screechy voice burst into
laughter.

“
What
do you think I’ve done with her? I’ve
killed her stupid!”

Matthew
hung up straight away. Dummy sat
quietly at the kitchen table in Sandy’s house. He casually put the
phone down and looked around proudly. His face was covered in
blood. Anne’s parents were nowhere in sight.

Jacobs
turned his head round a few times to
Matthew while driving, only holding his gaze for a second each time
before turning back to the road.

“
Well?”
said Jacobs impatiently after a
minute. Matthew faced forward, visibly upset by hearing Dummy’s
voice again. He shook his head in response to Jacobs’ question.
Jacobs cussed to himself.

“
Another one down
Doc”

“
Have we actually saved anyone?”
MacNamee asked, frustrated.

“
The day’s not over yet.
I’ll see you at the station.”

Jacobs
hung up.

The cruiser door
slammed shut Oates’
car was the last of the four to arrive at the station (including
Lynch’s who got there first). Oates was in the center of the
parking lot when he was accosted by a pedestrian across the
street.

“
Where
are you going Sheriff? Shouldn’t you
be stopping these murders?”

Oates
was taken aback, this had never
happened to him before. As darkness thought about entering
Staunton, Oates only had one thing to say.

“
Return to your home, we
have this under
control!”

“
The mayor
is dead Sheriff? Who’s
next?”

As Oates stood silent, the yelling man’s
wife urged him to move along, sparing Oates any further
embarrassment. Oates had to admit he didn’t have the answers the
man was looking for and a lot of people had died while he was
looking for a way to stop all this. As he stood for a moment
watching the pedestrian leave he thought about what he could have
done differently. This wasn’t a normal situation where a person was
committing crimes. It wasn’t a human killer with human
fallibilities. This was an extraordinary situation, which required
an unorthodox approach to policing. Despite the queue of bodies
waiting to be refrigerated at the morgue, Oates had five civilians
in his care with the potential to be saved from this mess. To him
that was definitely worth celebrating. And that number didn’t
include MacNamee, Crass, Lynch, Murdoch, Graham and Jacobs who,
despite the age-old cliché of accepting the risks of a job, did not
sign on for anything like this.