Ragged Man (34 page)

He heard a rustling in the brush off to his left and stopped, pointing the gun in the general direction of the sound.

“
J.P., Lincoln, Jesse!” he called out. The rustling stopped. “It’s Rick Gordon.” He waited for a long twenty seconds and getting no answer, continued on toward Lover’s Hideaway.

A low growl stopped him in his tracks. He crouched low and waited. There was something out there. His mind raced back to the day Judy had been chased by the bear and how J.P. had insisted that he’d fired the revolver at the Ghost Dog, not a bear.

He waited a few more seconds and hearing no further sound, got up and continued. Then he tripped over something. He threw his hands out in front of himself to break his fall. He hit hard, twisting his arm, spraining his wrist and losing the pistol.

“
Damn!” He turned and started to get up and came face to face with Lincoln Hewett’s bloody head. “Shit!” He scrambled back.

The horrible head, eyes screaming wide, stared into the sky with an unfathomable fear frozen onto its face, daring Rick to go further, but he no choice, he had to know what had happened to J.P.

He looked around for the gun, trying not to look at Lincoln’s staring eyes. He couldn’t find it. He stepped back and saw why. It was lying next to the dead deputy’s head, with blood on the grip. When he dropped the gun it must have landed on the head and bounced off. He grit his teeth, picked it up, wiped the blood off on his Levi’s.

He was stepping around the head when he heard the low growl. Something was on the path behind him. He turned and pointed the gun down the path, but there was nothing there except silence.

He turned back toward Lover’s Hideaway, moving as quickly as possible, rapid heartbeat, tense nerves and clammy skin betraying his fear. When he plunged into the clearing, his horror at the bloody sight sent him reeling backwards and he had to fight to keep from running away.

He turned away from Lincoln’s headless body. He didn’t need to inspect it to know he had been maimed and killed by a big animal. He picked up a khaki shirt and dropped it. He saw Jesse Terrenova’s automatic and picked it up. It was empty. He tossed it aside, and with pain in his heart, he saw J.P.’s Levi’s and the striped shirt that he’d been wearing yesterday.

He sank to his knees.

“
Not J.P., too,” he cried. Grief overcame him. He loved that boy. It was like his own son had been ripped from his breast by starving wolves. He had been dealt deep wounds, piled on, one after another until now he began to believe what the killer had said in his note.

He was damned.

His friends and lovers were being torn from him in the most brutal of ways and he was unable to stop it. Now he was going to have to face Judy and tell her that her son was dead. He didn’t know if he could do it.

He felt eyes on him.

He looked up through his tears and saw what could only be both J.P.’s Ghost Dog and Ann’s beautiful, horrible animal. It was a long way from Australia. The animal stared at him, unmoving, and Rick took the time to study it.

The beautiful black coat that Ann had told him about was now matted with blood. Rick assumed that the deputy had gotten off some good shots. The beast was wounded, but still very much a threat.

Rick tightened his grip on the forty-five as the animal stepped into the clearing and lowered itself, ears back, onto its haunches, like it was going to leap. He raised the gun and started firing. He missed, but the animal turned and fled, vanishing in a hail of bullets pinging in the earth behind it and slapping into the bushes and trees over its shoulders.

Rick kept firing into the brush until the gun was empty, hoping that he might have gotten in a lucky hit, then he jammed the hot gun back in his pants and scooted over to where Lincoln’s headless body lay and tore the thirty-eight police special from its holster. It wouldn’t do the damage of a forty-five, but it could kill just as deadly.

He remained still and listened for the animal’s deep breathing and, hearing nothing, he made his way to the path. He wanted to get back to the car. He moved swiftly with the thirty-eight clutched tightly in his right hand. If he fell again, he was determined not to lose the gun.

Halfway back to the car, he heard a heart stopping roar coming from the direction of the clearing. He heard the beast as it started down the path after him. He stopped, crouched and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long, within what seemed fractions of a second the beast was in sight charging down the path. Rick started firing, hitting the animal several times, not only stopping it but forcing it to turn and flee again. And Rick fled also, continuing his dash toward the car.

Running full tilt with not far to go, he heard the beast crashing through the brush, parallel to him and overtaking him. He fired two rapid shots, without slowing, in the direction of the crashing sounds. They were panic shots, serving only to quicken his already frantic pace, but the beast beat him to the cars. When he reached the end of the path, it was standing by the Montero, its black coat covered in wet blood and it was foaming at the mouth.

It roared into the morning, then started for him.

Rick fired on the move, but the hammer fell on an empty cylinder. The weapon was empty. He dashed for one of the police cruisers, grabbed the door, dove in and slammed it shut.

The beast pounced, smashing its head into the safety glass of the passenger window. The glass cracked into hundreds of small bloody pieces, held together by only the safety film, but it held. The black beast bounced off and readied itself for another charge. Rick knew the glass wouldn’t stop it a second time.

He ripped the riot gun from its rack, clicked off the safety, pumped a round into the chamber and fired as the beast’s head hit the glass for a second time, deafening him and shattering the glass outward, turning the black beast’s head into bloody mush.

He didn’t wait to see what it would do next. He jumped out on the driver’s side, pumped a second round into the chamber, dashed around the car, fired again into the bloody pulp that was the beast’s head. He emptied the remaining three rounds into its chest at point blank range.

And then he collapsed, fighting for breath. The Ghost Dog was dead.

Chapter Twenty-Three

J.P. woke sitting up. He tried to move, but it hurt his neck. He opened his eyes to a glaring light and studied his surroundings in a way that wouldn’t have occurred to him just forty-eight hours ago.

He was in Rick Gordon’s upstairs bathroom, in the bathtub and he was naked. His hands were again tied behind his back and his bruised feet were lashed together in the same manner as they were when he had been held captive in the trunk.

He was horribly thirsty and the tub was full of warm water, but he was unable to drink. He couldn’t move his head. His neck was in a noose and tied to the hot and cold water handles. The water to quench his thirst was so close and yet so far.

He tried to scream and discovered that again his mouth was taped. He inhaled through his nose, trying to calm himself, as he studied the bathroom in search of something that could aid in his escape. He found nothing. Then in the soap dish, his eyes locked on a small compact mirror sitting on top of a well used bar of soap. He wondered if it was Ann’s and he wondered if he could break it and use a piece of the sharp glass to cut his way through the ropes.

Maybe, if he pulled his knees into his stomach, he could straighten his legs, and maybe, just maybe, if he was lucky, he could knock the mirror off its perch, and it would fall into the tub.

He moved back, pressing his back up against the faucet, tucking in his knees. The faucet dug into his back, but he forced himself to ignore the pain. He straightened his legs and rocked on his behind, thrusting his foot toward the soap dish.

He missed, but not by much.

He was getting ready to try again, when he heard the heavy steps coming up the hardwood stairs. He didn’t have to play twenty questions to know who was coming. He lay his legs back down and braced himself for the worst. Then he realized that the Ragged Man was going to see him naked.

But of course he had already seen him without his clothes on, otherwise how did he get to be tied up naked in the tub. He didn’t like the idea at all. Why did he have to be naked? He didn’t like people to see him naked. He hated it when his mother came into the bathroom when he was in the tub. He always covered himself with a washcloth and pleaded with her to leave. It wasn’t funny, but she always laughed.

He hoped the Ragged Man wasn’t going to laugh. He hoped the Ragged Man wasn’t going to do anything at all.

He heard the footsteps as they left the stairs and made their way down the hall, coming toward the bathroom, coming toward him. He heard the doorknob turn and click, sending his heart through his throat. The door opened, a squeaky hinge screeching like chalk on a blackboard, sending shivers of fear along his spine. He wanted to shrink inside of himself, to make himself invisible, to vanish like a ghost in the woodwork, but he couldn’t. All he could do was wait in the tub, naked, and face his fear.

He stared up at the man as he entered the bathroom. He wanted to close his eyes, but the last time he did that, it made the man mad and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“
So, you’re awake.” The man walked over to the washbasin and studied himself in the mirror. Then he turned to look at J.P. “You know how it is, children should be seen and not heard. And I can see an awful lot of you.”

J.P. turned red.

“
Ah, embarrassed, are we? What’s the matter? Don’t like showing off your little pecker?” He bent over, so that J.P. could smell his foul breath, and shoved his hand under the water, flicking his finger against J.P.’s limp penis.

J.P. jumped and squirmed against the noose.

“
Relax, I’m not a baby raper. I might slit your throat and peel off your skin, but I’ll leave your little peepee alone.” He laughed, a raspy, insincere sound that chalked his spine worse than the squeaky hinge.

“
I’ll bet you want to know what I have in store for you. Well, you’re about to find out.”

The man left the bathroom and J.P. heard him go down the stairs and fumble around down there. He felt nothing but dread when he heard the footsteps coming back again. J.P. had no idea what the man had in mind, but he knew it was bad.

“
What I have here,” the man said, “Is your basic digital timer. I’m setting it to go off at, oh what’s a good time, how about noon, that sound good to you? It sounds good to me.” He plugged the timer into the wall with the bright red read-out facing the tub.

“
Now, I’m going to plug the extension into the back of the timer.” J.P. watched him do it. “And now, I’m going to plug the radio into the extension cord.” J.P. watched him do it. “And now, the fun part, I turn the radio on.” J.P. watched him do it. “But oh, no,” the man said, feigning surprise, “the radio didn’t come on. Oh, yeah, it won’t come on till high noon, when the timer goes off. Can you guess what I’m going to do with the radio?”

J.P. opened his eyes wide, telling the man how frightened he was.

“
Smart boy, I’m gonna put the radio in the tub.”

J.P. watched him as he set the radio in the tub, two feet from his feet.

“
At twelve, when the timer clicks on, you can kiss your naked ass goodbye.” the Ragged Man laughed.

J.P. squirmed, but the noose held him firmly in place.

“
Who knows. You’re a clever lad. You got away last time, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

The big man clomped out of the bathroom, closing the door on his way out. J.P. heard him thud down the hallway and down the stairs. He heard the front door slam a few seconds later. He was alone with the radio.

He wondered what station it was tuned to. Would he be electrocuted by The Rolling Stones, Weezer, The Black Crowes or by Rush Limbaugh? No, probably during the news, then later he would be the news. “Naked boy electrocuted in bathtub, film at eleven.”

“
Naked,” would be the highlight. They would make it a big deal that he was naked. Policemen, reporters, his mother, strangers, maybe friends, maybe even girls, would all see him naked. He didn’t want to be found naked.

He didn’t want his friends at school to laugh after he was dead. And he especially didn’t want his teacher to know that he died naked. It was bad enough that he had to die, but it was so embarrassing to be tied up without his clothes on, and he was so humiliated, because that big ugly man had touched him down there, between his legs. Nobody should be able to do that. It was wrong, and he started to cry.

He was so tired. Nobody could blame him if he just gave up. He was thirsty again and the water in the tub only served to tell him how dry his throat could get. He was hungry and he felt like he was starting to get sick, like the time when he had the two day flu.

A quick note of terror struck his heart. He threw up when he had the flu. He threw up a lot. If he threw up with his mouth taped, he would die, drowned in his own vomit. Well, he didn’t throw up in the trunk and he’d try not to throw up now. But he wondered, if he was sick, if he had the two day flu, would he be able not to throw up? He was more scared than ever.

But everything wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The warm water felt good against his aching sides and his cut and bruised feet.