Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

I did not let myself think about anything except a brick wall. A very old wall, the adobe bricks rough and chipped in places, the mortar holding them together, thin but strong. Moss growing in patches, tangles of ivy at one end, and over it all, bright and warm, splashes of late-afternoon sunlight that gave the wall the appearance of glowing, as if with a pale inner fire. William Sixkiller’s trick for inducing sleep or getting through any difficult static situation. Imagine something warm and pleasant. Focus on it, distinguish every detail, until it expands to fill your mind. I chose a wall, solid and unyielding, as a barrier against the forces of darkness massing on the other side.

Finally the car slowed and we turned off the smooth, paved road onto rough and muddy ground. The reflected shine of the headlights dimmed, but the dash lights remained on: driving now with just fog or parking lights. The car bounced, lurched, slid; something wet slapped against the passenger side, brushed along the window glass, and was gone. I watched the wall, the sunlight glowing on the waxy, stippled green of the ivy leaves. One of the tires thumped into a hole or deep rut with enough force to rock the car, nearly pitching me off the seat. He said, “Shit!” I continued to watch the bricks, the sunlight, the ivy.

The car stopped. All the lights went out briefly, then the dome light flashed on as he got out. Door slam. I expected him to open the rear door, drag me out or get in with me, but he had something else in mind. Footsteps squishing on grass or leaves, fading. Silence except for the rain.

I counted forty-seven ivy leaves, each a different shade or mixed shades of green. Then he was back; the rear door jerked open and he bent to fill the opening. Wearing the ski mask again, and that was good because if he was still hiding his face, it might mean he didn’t intend to kill me after all. If he did let me live, it would be his second-biggest mistake. I knew who he was now. And knowing made it worse, too; he was a man capable of violent excesses, sexual and otherwise, fueled by power, alcohol, drugs, or a combination of all three. I mustn’t let him know I knew his identity. Whatever he did to me, I must not let him know.

Hands on my body, and his voice raspy again when he said, “Here we go, bitch,” and he dragged me out of the car. Threw the blanket over my head to blot out the sight of him and the dark, dripping night. Lifted me, slung my body over his shoulder. Car door slamming. Moving away from it. Shoes crunching and slithering; a lurch and another sharp epithet. Stopping again. Creaking sound... door on rusty hinges. The whisper of the rain diminishing, the thud of his footfalls on solid wood. Inside a building of some kind. He’d switched on a flashlight: I could see downward through an open fold in the blanket, make out the faint backsplash of the beam as it probed restlessly from side to side.

He carried me through a narrow opening like a doorway, scraping my arm and head against one side of it. Then he halted again, shifted my weight, set me down hard on my feet, and ripped off the blanket. Then he pushed me, hard, so that I toppled backward onto something springy that smelled of must and old leather. I bounced, slid off to the floor. Light danced through heavy darkness, shapes appearing and vanishing again with the suddenness of phantoms; then it steadied on my face, bright enough to cause me to squint and turn my head aside. He’d put the flashlight down on some kind of chair nearby, so he’d have both hands free.

The hands grabbed hold of me again, lifted me roughly off the floor onto the yielding surface, straightened my legs on it. Couch... leather webbed with cracks, stuffing like white blood leaking through holes and tears. Then he ripped the tape off my mouth, viciously enough to take skin with it. I didn’t make a sound. Hurt me far worse than that and I still wouldn’t even whimper.

“Okay, bitch,” he said. He was breathing hard, but not from exertion. Excitement now — lust. His voice wheezed and quivered with it. “Now you get what you been begging for. All night long, just what you been begging for.”

He’d been at the edge of the light; now he came into it, stood at a quarter turn so I could see what he was doing. Unbuckling his belt. Unzipping his fly. Lowering and stepping out of his pants, his underpants. He was already aroused.

“Some hunk of bone, huh?” He came forward a pace, his hand around his sex, stroking it, holding it high like a pagan offering. “Biggest bone you ever had in your mouth. Suck it dry, yeah, suck the bone dry as a bone.”

No, I won’t, I thought, I’ll bite it off. But I knew I wouldn’t. He’d kill me for sure if I hurt him that way, and I did not want to die like this, here, at his mercy. I closed my eyes—

“Look at me, bitch. We both gonna watch this.”

— and I opened them again. He was advancing again, holding his sex, aiming it toward my mouth. I swallowed involuntarily. But only partway, because my throat was still sore, swollen as if with a blockage. If I couldn’t swallow...

I’m not afraid, I won’t be afraid.

The wall. Think of the wall, the bricks, the sunlight, the ivy, each leaf a different shade or mixed shades of green, glowing warm and bright and clean.

And he leaned close, almost touching my lips. The unwashed stench of him caused another upheaval in my belly.

And then—

Sudden sliding, scraping noise. A second light slashed on somewhere behind and to one side of me, this one even brighter, pinning the masked face with such dazzling brilliance that he threw up a startled arm and tried to turn away from it. In the next second something came hurtling through the crossing beams, a short, jagged-ended piece of wood, and exploded against the side of his head with a sound like a melon being split. He screamed, staggered, fell to one knee. A huge, dark shape rushed after him, swinging the length of wood, hitting him again as he groped for his pants. The next swing missed and that gave him time to tear the Ruger automatic out of his pants pocket, but not enough time to use it. The board swished down once more, thudding into the hand holding the gun, knocking the weapon loose and skittering it away across the floor.

He lurched to his feet, turning, still clutching his pants — no longer trying to fight, trying only to get away from the savage blows. His mask had been ripped loose along one side of his face; I had a clear look at the face, all bloody, the ear torn, one eye bulging as if it were about to burst from the socket. Then it was bare buttocks I saw, churning and pumping as he fled.

Confused scrambling after that, swirls and stabs of light. The two shapes coming together for a few seconds, creating a gigantic blob that filled the doorway across the room. Grunts, another thudding of wood against flesh and bone, another screech of pain. The shapes bursting apart, disappearing into the other room, the light forming wild, sweeping patterns and then something heavy hitting a wall or the floor. Running, banging sounds that soon faded into a thick, roaring silence.

I held my breath, waiting.

The flashlight beam steadied in the other room. Swung around and slid back into the one I was in. Man-shape behind it, heavy, uneven footfalls drawing closer. The beam shifted, picked me out, steadied on me but not directly in my eyes, allowing me to see him as he walked unsteadily into the stationary light from the other flash still propped on the nearby chair. Big, naked to the waist, a bandage obscuring part of his massive torso.

John Faith.

I was beyond shock or surprise. Not even capable yet of feeling relief. I lay there staring up at him.

“Son of a bitch got away,” he said thickly. “Almost had him. Would’ve if I was in better shape.”