T. Parker: Summer Of Fear

"Next, Russell. The Eye stated he had to kill me because I had been dishonest with him. The Eye values honesty above all other traits in human beings. I had been led to believe that the Eye was William Ing, which he is clearly not. But because of that untruth, I must go the way of the others, whose cleansing makes the air of this place clearer and cleaner with each passing day."

I wrote nothing. "Are you going to sign this?" I asked.

"My signature will be left all over this house."

In fact, I thought, it mattered not at all. But I was grasping for time, and for some idea-no matter how desperate-of how to keep him from shooting me in the back.

"A signature would help… dramatize it," I said.

"In your blood?"

"Very good," I said. "And I think you should say something about what people can do to save themselves."

"They can go away."

"Can your offer a time? A kind of grace period while they make arrangements to leave?"

I could see the Eye pondering this. His reflection was clear. He lifted the gun hand to rub the side of his face and came a step closer to my chair.

"Offer them one month," I continued.

"No! Too long!"

"Two weeks?"

"Shut up! Shut up while I th-th-think."

Into the silence that surrounded Ing's thought came a shrill mechanical screech from upstairs, followed by the groan of a motor. The lift!

I watched Ing look up, startled. And in that moment, I used all of the strength I could summon to lock my hands on the typewriter, pivot, and hurl the heavy machine into the chest of the Midnight Eye. Then I was on him. My forward charge caught him low and I drove him clear across the kitchen, slamming him ferociously against the refrigerator. I heard his gun thud against the hardwood floor. I found his throat with my hands, but as I had feared-and as I had experienced as a deputy on the beat-the strength of the furious and insane can be prodigious. His hands closed over mine and pulled them from his throat in one grunting motion that left me spread-armed and looking helplessly into Ing's wide dark eyes. It can only have been luck that allowed me to act first. I brought my knee up hard and felt it penetrate the softness of his groin. He screamed and went momentarily limp as I pulled free one arm and landed a chopping right-hand blow that struck him exactly where I had hoped-on his temple. He shuddered and I felt his body sag. I threw a wide left hook, harnessing all of my momentum from the first blow and aiming for his jaw. What happened next seemed to take place in one second at the most: I saw his right hand reach up and intercept my fist in midair. His body hardens with a fresh fury and his left arm clamped around my neck and drew me-like a combine gathering a shaft of wheat-snugly against his stinking body. I pushed off from the floor with throttled groan and ran us both back against the table, into which we crashed, rolled, and landed on the carpet-both of Ing powerful arms now locked around my neck and my breathing all but choked off. With my fingers, I found his hair, which yanked-only to feel the wig slide off in my hands! Then I found his eyes and dug my thumbs in with what diminishing energy I could find. I could hear his labored piglike breathing just above ^ my head, and I could hear, too, the groaning descent of Isabella wheelchair lift as it landed in its platform on the floor. My thumbs sank in! Ing bellowed with pain, and in the instant he reflexive reached for his face, I broke free of his clench, brought both my hands from his eyes to his throat, and tightened my fingers as if over the last tree branch between me and the abyss.

I turned him over and squeezed harder, trying to bring my inferior weight to bear. But just as the air rushed into my lungs and fresh blood surged into my head, I saw Ing's hand extend and close over the gun. I yelled and called upon my last reserve of muscle to choke the life out of him before that gun could be turned at me. It was not enough. His hand closed over the grip and his finger slipped inside the trigger guard. At that instant, when I would have to release his neck in order to defend myself against the gun, I saw in the far-right side of my vision a figure standing over us. Suddenly, Isabella's quad cane smashed down over the gun, pinning wrist and weapon against the carpet. I could look up at her for only an instant, but I will never forget what I saw there: Isabella in her blue pajamas, her turbaned head and swollen face, her weakened legs unsteady as she did her best to balance her weight over the handle of that thin cane, concentrating with all her considerable might upon the task of remaining upright. She swayed like a cottonwood in a high wind. But, charged by her courage, I drew a new strength and applied myself to nothing at all on earth except wringing the life out of the monster in my hands. I glared into his fierce eyes and bellowed myself, a roar that echoed through the room around us and seemed to settle in William Fredrick Ing's very eyes, which bulged, quivered, then focused on me a look of penetrating hatred that froze in place as I roared again, felt the bones in his throat popping beneath my fingers, and began slamming his lifeless head against the floor, again and again and again. Izzy's cane stood fast! When, breathless and emptied of all power, I rose upon my knees and released the throat, I looked up at Isabella, still wholly focused on maintaining balance on her damaged legs. Her eyes were closed and her gauze-wrapped head lifted as if to heaven. She swayed, righted herself, then swayed again. She began to fall. I caught her, still on my knees, and managed to settle her descending head into my left arm and guide her down gently to the floor. With my other hand, I took Ing's gun and planted the barrel of it against his head, should there be any life at all left in him. And with that gun in my right hand, extended, and Isabella's frail head crooked into the elbow of my left arm, I lay there, crucified to the carpet and unable to do anything but listen to the gasping of my own lungs and to the deeper, slower workings of Isabella's.

Slowly, our breathing became one rhythm. The ceiling lights shone down upon us. Sweat burned my eyes. I tumed and looked at my wife. The wheelchair stood behind her, locked in place. Isabella's eyes were open now and she blinked slowly I could see the quick pulse of cotton where her heart was beat ing. Her legs trembled from their effort.

"Is it over?" she whispered.

"It's over. It's over. It's over."

Martin Parish was the first to arrive. I welcomed him wordlessly, pointed to the body of Dee lying on the stairway, then led him into the living room, where Isabella sat again in her wheelchair and the Midnight Eye lay sprawled between kitchen and dining room.

"Hello, Isabella," he said softly.

"Hi, Marty."

"You okay?"

"I think I am."

Martin stood for a long moment over the body of the Eye. I stood beside Izzy. As I watched, Martin pulled off the false beard and set it down beside the Eye's head. What was revealed to us was quietly shocking: a rather plain but still handsome face marred by the scars of long ago; a straight, intelligent nose; high forehead giving way to thinning brown hair that now stood up in errant wisps, a pair of deep-set, very dark eyes, still open, that seemed more than anything else to be reflective of pain.

Martin shook his head and looked at us.

I stood above Isabella, my hands upon her still-trembling shoulders, and stared down at the lifeless man now occupying my kitchen floor.

Martin walked toward us and pointed at the couch. "Mind?"

"Go ahead," I said.

He sat heavily. "Eleven human lives. And his own miserable excuse for one."

"A cancer," said Isabella.

"We cured it a little late," said Martin.

"B-b-better than never," said Izzy.