Voracious (35 page)

She shook her head. This was going nowhere. She wanted to see his wound. By now it should be nearly healed. If it was, or if he refused to show it to her, she would know. “Let me see your head.”

“What?” he asked exasperated, still covering it with the towels.

“Let me see it!” she yelled, suddenly aware of the other passengers in the car, who stared at her and then looked away quickly when she met their eyes.

George backed up. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Why?”

He paused warily. “I don’t trust you,” he said finally.

She didn’t know how she was going to get past him. He completely blocked the aisle.

The other passengers stared. A couple in their thirties entered the car ahead of them.

“George,” she suddenly gushed. “Oh gosh, you don’t look so good. You look like you’re going to pass out!”

He wrinkled his brow in confusion. “No, I’m not. I—”

“Oh, yeah,” she went on. “Your pupils are completely dilated. You need immediate medical attention!” She turned to the couple as they approached. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can you help me take my friend to the train’s clinic? He’s really in a bad way.”

“Sure,” the woman said quickly. Her husband gave her a withering look. “We’d be glad to help.”

George shook his head. “Really—I don’t need—”

“Nonsense,” Madeline said quickly. Then to the couple: “I really appreciate it. He’s so stubborn. And I don’t think his balance is too great with that bump on his head.”

“No problem,” the husband grumbled, giving in to his wife’s good nature.

Madeline slid her arm around George’s waist, and the husband did the same on the other side. They began slowly walking him toward the rear of the train, where the medical attendant’s area lay. The wife walked ahead of them. “Are you okay?” she asked George.

He exhaled in exasperation. “This is totally unnecessary!”

“See how stubborn he is?” Madeline said to the wife. Inside, though, she knew it wasn’t stubbornness but calculated strategy. If he showed her the wound now, she’d know he was the creature. His refusal convinced her he was in fact her hunter. She had to get away while he was distracted.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. My Reginald is the same way.”

When they pressed the door button and entered the space between the cars, Madeline suddenly cried out in alarm, “Oh, no! George, I left your wallet with all our money sitting on the seat! I have to go get it!” She turned to the kind woman. “Will you see that he gets to the clinic?”

The woman nodded. “Of course.”

“Thanks!” Madeline let go of George’s waist and returned to the previous car. She’d wait there for a few minutes, long enough for the couple to escort him down to the clinic, and then she’d move forward to the observation car.

When she’d waited another five minutes, she passed between the cars and entered the observation lounge. About ten people sat around in the molded plastic white seats, most staring out at the sunset beyond. A businessman read a newspaper, a teenage boy relaxed with an MP3 player. Two kids about five years old pounded each other with their fists while their dad told them in an annoyed voice to cut it out. No sign of “George.” He’d have to play along with the couple till he got rid of them. He wouldn’t risk killing them out of annoyance in such a public place.

Madeline slumped down next to an older man in hunting coveralls reading a newspaper in the bright overhead fluorescent lights. She exhaled. Tried to work out some tension in her shoulders with her fingers. She shut her eyes briefly, then opened them, taking in the tremendous black peaks silhouetted against the golden sky.

The older man next to her lowered his newspaper and turned his head to stare at her. Unsettled, she tried to ignore him, but he watched her so pointedly that at last she turned and met his gaze. Terror swept over her. The sad eyes. The kind, fatherly face that had deceived so many. The wicked mouth turned up in a grin, revealing crooked, chipped teeth.

Sam MacCready, the Sickle Moon Killer.

He looked at her with interest, then pivoted to fully face her. “You look surprised,” he said, his voice trembling with anger. “You didn’t buy that killed-in-a-prison-fight story, did you?”

“How did you … ?” she said, her mouth gone dry.

“Find you? With the right … persuasion … men can give away even their deepest secrets. It cost your dad a lot of skin, but eventually he caved.”

Madeline stared. The terror she’d known since losing Ellie gripped her, freezing her to the spot. It was him. The Sickle Moon Killer. Same worry-creased brow, but the hair gray now, the physique muscular from years of prison weightlifting. From his hairy arms to his glowering expression, he was exactly as she’d seen him in nightmares haunting her since that day by the river.

She stood up silently and backed away, her movement in slow motion as in a dream. But this was no dream. Everything was too harsh. The reek of cigarette smoke, the vibration of the train, the echoing voices of chattering train passengers.

She backed up to the car’s door, mind numb. She should stay where she was, she thought. By all these people. He wouldn’t try to kill her by all these witnesses. And he was human. She could hurt him. She could kill him, if necessary, to save her own life.

He stood up, walked over to where she stood by the door. She moved off to the side, keeping an escape route open. Several people climbed up the stairs from the small snack bar below, talking animatedly and pointing out the mountains to each other while crunching on nachos. They sat down where she and the Sickle Moon Killer had rested moments before. She didn’t take her eyes off MacCready, making note of the other passengers in her peripheral vision. Even still, the flash of the knife darted out so quickly she barely had time to leap away. The blade tore through her sleeve, nicking her.

“What the hell?” cried a familiar voice. George’s head appeared in the stairwell from the snack bar, and he bounded up the remaining stairs. She’d almost convinced herself it couldn’t really be MacCready but must be the creature. But seeing George—that meant one of them was the creature. Didn’t it? She furrowed her brow.

Throwing himself at the Sickle Moon Killer, George knocked the old man sprawling, both of them landing violently amid the seats.

“Someone call train security!” George yelled out.

Madeline gripped her arm where she had been cut. Blood seeped through the material, soaking her hand.

The observation car exploded with activity, people crying out in surprise and yelling for security.

George struggled with MacCready on the seats, restraining the hand with the flaying knife. Madeline darted forward, twisted the hand painfully, and wrenched the knife from the man’s grip. His face contorted in fury when he saw her. Old, powerful rage and fear welled up within her, hatred filling her mind. Creature or not, she hated this man for what he had done, for haunting her all these years and killing the only person who had ever really loved her.

Her hand balled into a fist, and before she’d made the conscious decision, she pounded him in the face, his nose exploding with an audible pop. Blood sprayed out, flecking George’s face as he struggled to keep the man down.

“I fucking hate you!” she yelled, pounding him again, this time connecting with an eye. Her left hand joined the rain of violence, and she landed blow after furious blow, including one to the throat that left him choking and gagging.

And then uniformed officers grabbed her and pulled her off MacCready. One restrained her while the other pulled George away.

“Are you okay, sir?” the portly, younger officer said to MacCready, obviously seeing him as some sort of elderly, innocent victim of a violent attack.

“He’s the killer!” Madeline yelled. She thrashed in the restraining grip of the officer behind her, so angry she just wanted to pound the old man and the cop into oblivion.

By now all the passengers in the observation car and the snack bar below had gathered around the fight. “She’s right!” a man said. “The guy had a knife!”

“He cut her!” another added.

“Is this true?” asked the officer who held her, a lean older man with wispy white hair.

“Yes, damn it!”

The cop released her, and she grabbed her arm again, the sleeve completely soaked now in her blood.

“Madeline,” George said to her, pushing past the portly train cop to come to her. “Are you all right?”

She saw that his head had been neatly bandaged where she’d injured him.

She backed away, not sure what to make of him. “Stay back,” she warned, fists still balled at her sides.

Behind him, the older cop approached, pulled out his handcuffs, and stood the Sickle Moon Killer up on his feet while his hefty partner looked on.

George frowned. “I don’t understand. You leave without even saying good-bye. Then you ask me to come up here to get you and practically bash my brains in!”

Madeline stared at the Sickle Moon Killer, feeling half in a nightmare. It didn’t mesh in the real world. She looked back at George then, puzzled. “What do you mean, I left without saying good-bye?”

Before he could answer, the Sickle Moon Killer suddenly threw his arms up, throwing off the older train cop before he had a chance to snap cuffs on the powerful hands. “You’re dead!” he screamed at Madeline, spittle raining from his mouth.

He kicked the train cop in the gut just as the officer scrambled to get a hold on his prisoner. The flaying knife lay nearby on the floor, and he dived for it. Wiry fingers closed around the handle, and MacCready brought the knife up, connecting with the officer’s stomach. A long, red line appeared as blood seeped through the man’s torn button-down shirt. He staggered back, clutching his stomach. His young partner rushed to him as he fell, screaming for someone to get a doctor.

The Sickle Moon Killer advanced, eyes crazed and locked on Madeline.

She glanced around for a weapon but saw none, only bolted-down seats and other passengers staring on mutely. Her eyes fell on a hard-sided briefcase, and she picked it up, then hurled it at him. It connected with his shoulder, and he winced with pain.

Then the passengers started to panic. Some ran out of the observation car, piling into the dining car and sliding the door closed behind them. Three passengers came forward, two men and a woman in their forties who seemed to know each other. They moved forward as a single mass, shoulder to shoulder, and leapt as one at MacCready, grabbing his hands.

But the Sickle Moon Killer was amazingly strong, and his armed hand came free, flaying knife striking out at them, aiming for faces and arms and soft middles. One of the men screamed, a gash opening in his chest, and the woman crumpled to the floor when the knife tore open a pulsing artery in her arm. MacCready flung the last man to the side, and he clattered down the narrow stairs to the snack bar below, crying out in surprise and pain.

Now George and Madeline stood in the car with MacCready and the two wounded Good Samaritans, who groaned and lay sprawled on the floor. One train cop was performing EMT duties on his partner, who lay prone, the color washed from his face.

The Sickle Moon Killer advanced on Madeline. She backed up, throwing everything she could find at him. A basket of nachos with dripping cheese. A copy of the
New York Times
, which rattled and fell at his feet. An abandoned backpack with a heavy book inside. The MP3 player. They bounced off him ineffectually.

George moved to the side, keeping out of MacCready’s reach, furtive eyes searching for a way to restrain him. Madeline tried to think of the train’s layout. The only turf she knew for certain was the cars behind them. She glanced over at the two train cops. The uninjured one leaned over his friend, applying pressure to the slice. Both had guns on their belts.

A
whoosh
admitted a woman in a white coat to the observation lounge. Taking in the situation and wounded people, she rushed first to the fallen cop.

“I got it from here,” Madeline heard her say to the younger officer.

At that, the cop leaped to his feet, pivoting angrily.

As the Sickle Moon Killer steadily advanced on Madeline with the flaying knife, the cop unholstered his gun and aimed. A series of deafening shots rang out in the small confines of the car. Madeline clasped her hands to her ears as blood exploded from MacCready’s chest in four places, raining over the white plastic seats.

A surprised look spread over his face, and he paused, the knife sliding from his hand. It clattered on the floor, and Madeline stepped forward quickly and kicked it away. MacCready swayed, opening his mouth. Blood spilled out, bubbling on his lips as he tried to suck in a breath. Then he crashed forward to his knees, looked up at her angrily, and crumpled face-first onto the floor. He lay there for several long, agonizing moments, trying to draw in breath, the blood seeping across the floor as it spilled from his mouth and chest. His back spasmed, arcing backward at an awkward angle. Then he went still.

Madeline crept forward. Kicked his arm. No reaction.

The surprised eyes still stared, glistening and wet.

The train’s EMT stabilized the cop, then attended to the three Samaritans, the last of whom had just dragged himself up from the snack bar below. The EMT gestured to the wounded officer and the woman with the sliced artery, and said to the young cop, “We’re going to have to get these people to a hospital in Whitefish.” The officer didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the fallen body of MacCready, gun still drawn. Crinkly eyes that looked like he’d known a lot of laughter in his time now looked gaunt and gray. At last he lowered the gun, put it in his holster, and turned back to his partner.

Madeline looked back at MacCready’s body. As she watched, the eyes began to film over. He was dead.

George rushed to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t look away from the body. All the years she’d lived in terror, the never-ending flashbacks. She didn’t think they’d go away now. She thought they’d get worse. Now the killer truly was free to roam anywhere, no longer confined to a body. His ghost would haunt her forever.