Showdown (23 page)

This was the first time he'd seen something impossible happen without the magician on hand to execute his magic.

Fred and Peter saw something on the old theater wall, but only after they'd taken some of Black's slimy concoction. And he hadn't seen that himself. They'd all seen the clouds darkening overhead and dust blowing along the streets, but Johnny was quite sure that was real.

So what did that make this disappearance of the red marble? Real?

A
thunk
sounded behind him. He spun, but there was nothing he could . . .

He caught his breath. The red shooter sat on the wall, halfway up, near the door frame. Johnny lowered himself to his bed unsteadily. What was going on here? He watched it for a minute, waiting for it to move. The marble just sat there as if stuck to the wall with glue.

Johnny rose and approached the red shooter. Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached out. Touched it. Gripped it between his forefinger and thumb. Pulled it off the wall.

The glass shooter was smooth and weighty, exactly as it always had been. He let it rest in his palm and opened his fingers. The ball trembled and rose from his hand as if suspended on an invisible string.

Incredible! Johnny moved his hand to the right. The marble followed, precisely equaling the movement of his hand. He jerked his hand to the left. Again the marble followed precisely. No lag.

He moved his hand in a quick circle. The red orb followed every move without falling behind even a fraction of a second. A crooked smile formed on his face. This was absolutely . . .

The marble broke form, drifting toward the dresser. Like an unidentified flying object, the orb hovered two feet above the dresser for a long moment, then sunk slowly to the oak surface and touched down in its original resting place without a sound.

Johnny sat hard on the bed. The box springs squeaked. He didn't know what to think, other than it wasn't a trick. Black wasn't up in the attic floating the ball on an invisible string. He wasn't crouched behind the bed using magical magnets that worked on glass. Johnny had touched the marble. Held it in his hand. What he'd just seen had to be real.

The marble did not move.

Johnny just watched.

STEVE SMITHER had spent the night under the saloon's back porch, where he intended to keep an ear tuned to destruction. He awoke close to noon, although he wouldn't have known it by the sky, because the sun was obscured by dark clouds.

He had only four sticks left—Claude and gang destroyed eight, and he ruined one on Chris. He needed more sticks.

Steve walked home, past the shed, looking for any wood that might work.

No wood.

He returned to the saloon and struck out for the forest, gripping one of the sharpened stakes in his left hand. His mind was foggy and he couldn't see too well, but he lurched toward the grove of saplings from which he'd harvested his other stakes.

The leaves were coming off the trees, an early fall in the middle of summer. What a trip.

Steve stumbled into a small clearing and paused, dazed. Had he forgotten something? His destination maybe. No, he was going to the grove of aspens to make some more sticks.

Or he would cut down some little trees and then haul them to his shed where he would make some more sticks. Unless Paula was there—then he would stay out at the grove where she couldn't ask him any questions, like why he was making so many sticks.

He looked down at the stake in his right hand and then at his left hand, hanging there, limp, empty. Of course! He'd forgotten the ax. Stupid, stupid!

Steve lifted his hand and stared at the dried blood on his forearm. Chris's blood. He wondered if he'd killed the man. An image of Chris lying there on the pool table all curled up filled his mind. He grinned and forgot about the ax for the moment.

Beat that man good, hadn't he? Should've beat the other two while he was at it. In fact, it was probably Claude's punk kid who'd found his sticks in the first place. Kids were like that, poking their noses in where they didn't belong.

Maybe they would come back for some more fun and he could have some more of
his
fun. He flexed his fingers around the crusted blood. This time he might stick the sharp end into them. They would sure howl about that!

The thought of making more sticks struck him as senseless. Why make more stakes when he had four perfectly good sticks? He should start learning how to
use
the stakes, shouldn't he? Like graduating from boot camp. It was time to learn how these things worked for real. He could always make more stakes. But learning how to
use
them, now that would be something.

And not just the blunt end either.

Steve stood in the small clearing, swaying on his feet, left hand clamped around a three-foot stake and the other bloody hand palm up by his chest. He looked around at the trees.

Well, I can't just go around poking people for practice. They'd never understand.
So then what? What can I stick my stakes into?

A chipmunk scurried across the clearing, and Steve watched it go. Now there was a thought. Course, the critter was a bit small, but it could make for good practice. It could be like a mission:
Pursue and kill all the chipmunks.
And any other bigger animals you encounter
.

Yes, sir. Now
bigger
animals might be something. He could jab them good with his stakes.
Jab, jab, jab.

Steve clenched the stake with both hands and stalked into the forest.

WHILE STEVE was stumbling through the woods, discovering bloodlust, Claude Bowers was down by the Starlight Theater grinning up at the big sign. Beside him stood a badly bruised and bloodied Chris Ingles. Roland, Peter, and Fred stood to one side, watching his every move.

They'd fixed a crude splint to Chris's broken arm, but he'd complained for the last thirty minutes about the pain, and Claude was getting sick of telling him to shut up.

“Take some more of those painkillers and just shut your trap, Chris! Here, drink some of this.”He shoved his bottle of Jack Daniels at the man.

“We're gonna ransack this entire town,” Claude said, looking at his son with a wide grin. “What do you think of that?”He snatched the bottle back from Chris and took a slug. Chris had almost emptied it, but Peter had another bottle in his pocket, and they knew where Steve kept the rest.

Stevie Smither hadn't seen nothin' yet! They were going to teach that slime bucket what happened to anybody who messed with them.

“Neat,” Peter said. A crooked grin twisted his face, and Claude thought maybe he shouldn't have beat him so hard yesterday. His right eye was
swollen shut and his lip was still cracked with blood.

But he'd had it coming, smashing the television like that.

“Yeah, neat,” Roland said, looking up.

Claude bent to the pile of axes at his feet, snatched up a large splitting ax, and handed his bottle to Peter.“Here, hold this. And don't go drinking it all.”

He swaggered up to one of the two wooden posts that supported the sign swaying in the wind thirty feet above.“Ready?”He gripped the ax with both hands. A strong gust of wind hit him and he staggered back a step.

“Do it, Claude!” Chris said, still holding his right arm gingerly.

Claude raised the ax and put every one of his 280 pounds into the swing. The blade buried itself in the post with a loud
smack,
and Peter let out a
whoop
.

“Do it, Dad!”

“Yeah, do it!” Roland mimicked.

Claude tugged at the ax. It budged, but barely. He placed a foot on the pole for leverage. The blade came loose, and he tumbled to his rear end, cursing loudly. Chris howled with laughter.

“Shut up, Chris! I'll come over there and break your other arm!”

That settled him a bit. Chris snickered as Claude struggled to his feet and lined the ax up for another swing.

Smack!

The watching evidently proved too much for Peter. He set the bottles of booze on the ground, snatched up a hatchet. In his eagerness, his right foot knocked Claude's bottle over. The thirsty dust swallowed the amber liquid.

Claude stared at the bottle, ax just raised for a third swing.

Their eyes met—Claude's glaring, Peter's wide. “You'll pay for that,” Claude rasped and swung angrily at the pole.
Smack!

“I'm sorry. I swear. Can't Chris hold the bottles? He's a lame duck anyway.”

“Shut up, Peter,” Chris said. “Can't you see I'm hurt here? You think I just want to be a lame duck? I can hardly move here, man!”

“Shut up, Chris,” Claude said. “Peter's right. Take the bottles.”

Peter helped his dad hack at the large pole with his small hatchet. Roland joined him from the opposite side, swinging sporadically between Peter's continuous warnings not to miss and hit him by mistake.

It took the trio ten minutes of palm-blistering chops and nonstop bickering before the mighty sign at the south end of Paradise began to lean toward the street.

“Watch out!” Chris yelled. “It's coming down! It's gonna hit the car!”

Claude's old blue 310 Datsun was parked on the shoulder fifteen feet from the sign. None of them had considered the sign's trajectory. The sound of splintering wood rose above the wind, and the thirty-foot beacon began its descent.

If Claude had parked his Datsun seven feet to the right, the two supporting poles would have straddled the car. Instead, the massive timber smashed onto the sedan's canopy, crushing it into the driver's seat. The huge Starlight sign slammed into the pavement beyond.

Claude raised his ax above his head, spread his legs wide, tilted his head to the black clouds, and let out a roar of approval.

Peter and Roland hopped up and down, ecstatic. Chris instinctively raised his broken arm in victory and then winced with pain. But the accomplishment was too great to be thwarted by a little pain, and he shouted anyway.

The sign's plastic casing lay shattered on the blacktop. The car sat buckled like a fortune cookie. Claude's gang celebrated their first major feat of destruction.

“I'll drink to that!” Chris shouted.

They slammed the bottles of Jack Daniels together in a toast. Unfortunately, Chris's bottle proved to be a bit too brittle for his enthusiasm. It shattered on impact, spilling more amber liquid into the dust.

It was the last bottle, and none of the others were in a sharing mood. He shuffled off toward the saloon for more, cursing.

“What did I tell you?” Claude said, ignoring Chris. “Now was that a trip or was that a trip?”

“That was a trip,” Peter answered.

“Yeah, well, we're gonna show this whole town how to trip. We're gonna do this town, boys!”

WHILE CLAUDE was busy plotting the trashing of Paradise by the Starlight Theater, Nancy was taking a screwdriver to the rear door of his store, All Right Convenience
.

Nancy shoved the flat end into the keyhole and pried to the left. She'd never actually broken a lock before, and she didn't know what actually made them open other than a key. Perhaps a sledgehammer.

She doubted a screwdriver was the right tool for breaking into the local convenience store. But it was the only tool she could readily find when she finally made the decision to brave the wind for some food.

Her small indiscretion was Claude's fault. If the fat pig would open his doors for business, she wouldn't have to break in, now would she? The front doors had been locked for over forty-eight hours, and she was out of things to eat.

To make matters worse, the father had called and told her he wasn't coming back until Sunday morning, just in time for church. “I've got a message for the people,” he'd said. “And I think the impact would be most powerful if I just walked in while they were already assembled for Sunday morning service. It's going to be powerful, Nancy. Powerful.”

“Well, I hope people come,” she said.

“What do you mean, come? They always come on Sunday.”

“I don't know, Father. I haven't seen a soul all day. Are you going to a Sam's Club?”

“Why would I be going to a Sam's Club? What do you mean you haven't seen a soul all day? You mean in the church?”

“If you went by a Sam's Club, you could get me a large pack of those pastries I like so much. The cherry ones with glaze. Maybe a dozen packs, so we have them for church functions when we need them. And no, I don't mean the church. I mean the town. It's pretty quiet around here.”

“But nothing's wrong, right? As far as you can tell everything's okay?”

“Yes, Father. It's just fine. Maybe you'd better get a couple dozen of those packs. They're pretty cheap at Sam's, you know?”

“I'm not going to Sam's,” he said. “You weigh enough as it is. The last thing you need are glazed pastries.”

Now what was he so rankled about? That jab was entirely unnecessary. But one of the advantages of weighing enough was the pressure you could bring to bear on a lock if you leaned on it hard enough.

The screwdriver bent as she brought her 270 pounds to bear. Something snapped, and she plowed into the white door frame, nose first. A warmth immediately ran down her lip.

I've broken the screwdriver.
She pulled back, wiped her face, and brought her forearm away bloody.
Goodness.
She reached out to test the doorknob.
I've broken my nose too.

The handle turned easily in her hand and the door swung away from her. What do you know? She stepped in, went straight to the bathroom, and flipped the lights on. The face staring at her in the mirror looked like an onion. An onion with two raisins for eyes and a red mustache.

The blood flowed freely over her mouth and down her chin. The white blouse she wore was already wet with blood, so she thought that maybe she looked more like a red-breasted robin. Either way, she was intrigued by the fact that the blood did not bother her.
I'm turning into a regular sinner
.