The Adjusters (31 page)

“Did I get him?”

“Yeah. You got him.”

He began to manoeuvre her across the porch, stopping to pick up the shotgun awkwardly with his free hand. Tucking it under his arm, he stooped to get the Magnum as well. He didn’t intend
to leave either of them lying around for Trooper Dan. The cop had stopped staring at his hand now and was gazing at them both with a completely blank expression.

“Stay the hell down!” Henry snapped, waving the second gun at the cop as he moved to get up. “You know we’ll use this now!”

Trooper Dan stayed on his knees, but his eyes followed Henry as he passed. The cop’s skin had gone deathly pale, making the splatters of blood on his face stand out in high contrast,
almost black in the moonlight. He grinned, exposing two rows of perfectly white teeth. “You’re dead,” he hissed. “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Yeah? Well you’ll have to catch us first.”

Henry carried on past the cop, half carrying Fox, who was too shaken up to put one foot in front of the other unaided. Up ahead the ancient pickup trucks stood waiting and Henry made a beeline
for the slightly less wrecked of the two. It was a monster of a vehicle with rusting green paint and cobwebs in the windows, but the tyres appeared intact. As they reached the door he looked back
at the house and was shocked to see that Trooper Dan had got to his feet and was staggering in the direction of a barn over to the side.

“You have to help me out here,” Henry told Fox urgently. “That cop isn’t finished.”

His words seemed to bring Fox to her senses a little, because she unhooked her arm from his and stood up straighter. She caught sight of the guns he was carrying and her face went pale once
more. “I don’t want those anywhere near me.”

“It’s okay,” Henry said. “I’m getting rid of them.”

With a cry, Henry heaved the shotgun through the air. It disappeared far into the undergrowth at the edge of the property. He did the same with the Magnum and then pulled on the pickup door
handle. It opened with a screech of rusted metal. Henry pushed Fox into the passenger seat and then limped round to get behind the wheel.

The first set of keys fitted in the ignition and when Henry turned them the engine gave a protesting howl. The entire frame of the vehicle shuddered as if it were about to fall apart.

“Try again,” Fox encouraged as she reached over to wipe away the grime from inside the windshield with a rag she’d found on the floor. Already she was beginning to sound more
like herself again, much to Henry’s relief. Nothing kept her down for long.

Henry turned the key again, but shook his head when the engine failed to spark a second time.

“Maybe we should just make a run for it,” Fox said.

“We need a vehicle,” Henry insisted, remembering the helicopter. They weren’t going to make it very far on foot. As Fox wiped another section of the windshield they saw Trooper
Dan emerge from the barn through the smeared glass. He was headed directly for them, left hand now wrapped in a bandage and covered in a thick, black substance that looked like tar – as if
he’d smothered it to stop the bleeding. In his right hand he held an axe.

“Oh no,” Fox said, reaching over to lock her door.

Suddenly Henry regretted getting rid of the guns and almost considered making a run to get them, but Trooper Dan was already too close. For a man who had just lost most of his left hand, he
showed little sign of pain now. In fact his face, with those black, inhuman eyes, had a look of insane determination that gave him the aspect of an unstoppable machine.

“Come on!” Henry said, almost pleading as he turned the key and hit the gas again. The truck began a rhythmic juddering, as if it were on the verge of ticking over…

Outside, Trooper Dan came within a metre of the vehicle and raised the axe high with a cry. He brought the shining, highly sharpened head toward the windshield.

The engine of the pickup roared into life. Henry threw it into reverse and it sped backwards as the axe came down, scraping across the already dented surface of the hood. He spun the wheel and
the pickup skidded 180 degrees, so it was facing the driveway out of the property. The truck handled like a beast, but instincts honed by years of playing racing games kicked in… Henry threw
the stick into drive like he’d been behind the wheel for years…

“Floor it!” Fox yelled.

In the side mirror Henry saw Trooper Dan running at them, axe swinging in his hand. He hit the gas hard as the blade of the axe ripped through the flimsy metal of the passenger door, centimetres
from Fox’s leg. Then the pickup shot forward, down the gravel drive that wound through the trees, and out onto the main road.

“I hope this leads somewhere!” Henry yelled as they took a sharp turn. If anything, the drive seemed to be getting narrower…before it suddenly opened out onto a main road.
Henry struggled to keep control, gripping the wheel hard, but it was more luck than anything that got the truck on the road and headed in the right direction. The tyres squealed as they burned
rubber along the tarmac.

Then they were heading away from Trooper Dan’s house as fast as the truck could carry them, which was about 40kph. Henry leaned his head back and took a deep breath. The head of the axe
was still sticking through the door – it had been wrenched from the cop’s hand as they sped away. He looked round at Fox, who was focused on the road ahead with great intensity,
knuckles white on the dashboard.

“Are you okay?” he said.

Fox nodded. “I’m okay. I just…” Her voice trailed away, as if she’d just thought of something terrible. Her eyes darted to the rear-view mirror. “He’s
in the back!”

Henry jerked round in his seat, looking through the back window into the empty back of the truck…

There was nothing there. He took a deep breath. “He’s not there.”

Fox laughed, a little manically. “Sorry. Getting paranoid.”

They took another corner fast. Henry was riding the gas hard, trying to put as much space between them and the cop as possible. He wondered just how much Trooper Dan had in him. The wound to his
hand had been serious, but he’d shown little sign of pain. Had he been
adjusted
as well? The cop’s resilience reminded him of their fight with Steve. An implanted SPIDIR would
have allowed him to shut off the pain, but how long would it be before the blood loss caused him simply to collapse? Henry took another glance through the back window, half expecting to see the
police cruiser in pursuit, but the road was empty. He looked up. No sign of the helicopter in the sky either. Perhaps they’d got lucky.

“Henry!” Fox exclaimed.

He looked round in time to see the headlights of a cop car speeding towards them. For a second he thought it was the trooper, but then realized there was no way Dan could have come from that
direction. Also this vehicle was white with blue markings, more like the patrol cars he was used to seeing in the city. He watched the tail lights recede into the distance in the side mirror. But
then the car stopped and began to pull round. Red and blue flashes lit up the dark sky.

“It’s following us!” Fox said. “Why is it following us?”

The randomized
whup-whup-woo
of the siren grew closer as it sped back up the road after them.

“Well, let me see,” Henry said. “They just passed two kids driving a forty-year-old pickup with an axe sticking out of the passenger door. I think they might have
noticed.”

Fox shot him a glance. “Do you think they’re with Malcorp?”

Henry considered as he watched the cop car grow huge in the mirror. “No. Those are city cops. I can tell by the colours on the car.”

“What does that mean? They could be working with Mallory too.”

“Maybe,” Henry said. “Or maybe they’re just passing. They’ll have a radio. We can call for help.”

Fox nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

“PULL OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD NOW,” a cop’s voice blared from a speaker set into the front of the pursuit vehicle.

“We can’t outrun that car,” Henry said.

“I hope you’re right about them,” Fox replied as he eased off the gas and brought the truck to a halt by the side of the road. Behind them, the patrol car stopped a good ten
metres away.

“Just stay there,” Henry said to Fox before opening his door and stepping out with his hands raised…

“FREEZE!” a lean, thin-faced cop screamed from the other car. He was halfway out of the passenger door and already had his automatic in his hands. “Police officer! Hold it
right there or I will shoot!”

“Please!” Henry called back to the cop. “We need help! We’re being chased!”

The driver’s door of the patrol car opened and another officer, much stockier than the first, emerged. He had a shotgun in his hands and crouched down, using the door as a shield.

Henry went on, “There’s this crazy—”

“STOP TALKING AND LISTEN CAREFULLY!” the thin cop bellowed in a voice that made Henry shut up immediately. “Get on your knees and place your hands on your head. Do it
now!”

Henry did as he was told. As he kneeled down, he glanced at Fox through the open door. Although she looked as terrified as he felt, she still managed to roll her eyes at him as if to say
told
you so
.

“Who else is in your vehicle?” the cop yelled, keeping his gun trained on Henry, even though he was kneeling as instructed.

“My friend,” Henry said.

“Tell her to put her hands on the dash and keep still,” the cop ordered.

“Keep still,” Henry said to Fox.

“Yeah, I heard,” she replied, placing her hands where the cop could see them.

Satisfied that they were complying, the thin cop said something to his partner and then started walking towards the pickup, all the while keeping his gun trained on Henry. As he approached,
Henry saw that he was indeed a city cop – dressed in a different uniform to the brown Newton County trousers and shirt that Trooper Dan wore. A gold name tag on his chest read
Myers
.
He gave the pickup a wide berth as he approached, looking into the front at Fox before turning his attention to Henry.

“Do you know you’ve got an axe sticking out of your vehicle?” he asked.

“Uh, yes sir,” Henry replied. “I do.”

“How old are you two?”

“Fourteen.”

“Little young to be driving, don’t you think?” Rather than waiting for a response, the cop asked, “What’s that on your shirt?”

Henry looked down at the front of his T-shirt and saw the flecks of blood all over it from Trooper Dan’s hand, drying to a dark red now. He winced as he said, “It’s
blood.”

“Your blood?”

“No, sir.”

“Her blood?” Officer Myers asked, nodding at Fox.

“No, sir,” Henry replied. “It was this cop…”

“
A cop?
”

Henry shot a desperate glance at Fox, who shook her head slightly.

“He’s crazy,” Henry went on. “His name’s Trooper Dan, but he’s insane. We were in his house…”

“You were in the cop’s house?”

“Yeah…”

“Breaking and entering?”

“No…we…”

“How’d you get his blood on you?”

“He…” Henry swallowed heavily. “He got shot. But it isn’t what you’re thinking…”

Officer Myers moved fast, grabbing a pair of handcuffs from his belt and moving behind Henry. “Don’t you move a muscle,” he ordered Fox as he snapped the cuffs over
Henry’s left wrist, pulled his arm down his back and then cuffed his right wrist to it.

“You’ve got this all wrong!” Henry protested. “We’re in danger!”

Myers grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. “In danger? Well, don’t worry, kid. We’re gonna lock you up in the back of our patrol car where you’ll be real safe.
Your girlfriend too.” He turned to Fox. “Get out of the truck nice and slow. Then start walking towards my partner with your hands high as you can. Got it?”

Fox nodded. She opened her door and began walking as she’d been instructed. Myers started leading Henry in the same direction, keeping a few paces behind Fox.

“What’s your name, kid?” asked Myers, who seemed a whole lot more relaxed now his prisoner had the cuffs on. Henry told him his name. “Well, you’ve got some
explaining to do, Henry.”

“I’m trying to explain!” he protested. This wasn’t going at all as he’d hoped. It looked like the cops were going to put them in the car and drive them right back
to Newton and into the waiting arms of John Mallory. And who would they listen to then? The kid with blood all over his T-shirt or the billionaire businessman? He could almost imagine
Mallory’s words…

They’re runaways, officer… Problems with drugs… Delusional… Yes, we’ll take very good care of them from now on…

“Please, you at least have to make a call on your radio,” said Henry, knowing he was running out of chances to convince them.

“You’ll get to make your call at the station,” Myers said. Fox was now standing with her hands on the hood of the patrol car. Henry met her eyes and gave an exasperated
look.

“Great,” she said. “Take us to the city…”

“We’re taking you to the nearest sheriff’s office,” Myers said. “Which I’m thinking would be the Newton County department.”

“No!” Henry said. “Not Newton! Trooper Dan’s in charge there!”