Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

They were maddening him, maddening him like a bull, inciting violence. Wasn’t that a crime? He wheeled the car around, tires spinning crazily in the snow, skidded to a stop outside the Glass Onion, jumped out, slamming the door shut hard, but nothing like the way he was going to slam them around. Slam. The street-lights went out.

The whole town went dark. Everything disappeared: the street, the buildings, the ground, the sky. Even the blowing snow was now invisible, but Freedy could feel it stinging his face, maddening him more. He entered the alley, felt his way along to the space behind the Glass Onion.

Couldn’t see a goddamn thing, no people, no footprints, only darker shadows and lighter shadows. He slogged his way through the snow, bumped into what had to be the overhang of the loading dock. A good hiding place, as he knew well. He lashed out with his boot a few times, hit nothing.

“I want the money,” he said, not hysterically, just making an announcement. He found the Dumpster, one of the darker shadows, kicked out at any small dark shadows he saw around it, connected with nothing human.

He made another announcement: “I’m going to murder you.” Then he had a disturbing thought. What if they’d slipped by him, were already out of the alley? What about the car? Freedy hurried back to the street, slipping once and falling in deep snow. So cold. He hated the cold.

The car was still there, filling up with snow. He got in, turned it on, fiddled with switches. This and that happened, but the top didn’t go up. He sat there, hundred-dollar bills and note cards all around him, blood seeping from his forearm, snow filling the car. An important business term was eluding him. What was it? Something about… taking stock. That was it. Time to take stock. What did he have? He had this car, of course, but it wasn’t his main asset. His main asset, his only important asset-yes, face facts-was the girl. He had to do something about that asset. There were two choices: protect the asset or destroy it. He tried to think of other options and could not. Protect or destroy, but it would be his choice, no one else’s. He was in charge.

Freedy switched on the headlights, the only lights in town, and gunned the car up College Hill.

Nat and Izzie, lying on top of the Dumpster lid, heard the sound of the fading engine through the storm.

“Where’s he going?” Izzie said.

“To get her,” said Nat. His jaw was bad. He felt the side of his face: caved in.

“But where is she?”

Where was she? A milion sounds nice. It was somewhere in there, right in the open. Later would be no good. He had to figure it out now. He was supposed to be smart, supposed to be good at solving problems. Solve this one. A simple sentence. A milion sounds nice. What was the most important part of any sentence? The verb. Sounds. Nat said it aloud. “Sounds, sounds, sounds. For something to sound nice…” There had to be a listener to hear it. For something to sound nice, you had to hear it. To hear it, you had to be in a place to hear it. Freedy had a place. He’d been listening.

A convincing idea, especially since he had no others. “Let’s go,” Nat said.

They went, but it was slow. He was slow, not Izzie. He was slow lowering himself off the Dumpster, slow finding his way to the street. Izzie tugged him along, stooping once to pick something up, somehow sharp-eyed and surefooted in the darkness.

“If he does anything to her, my life is over,” she said.

“That’s not true.”

“How can you be so stupid?”

His jaw hurt too much to argue.

They ran, or tried to run, up College Hill.

“What’s that in your hand?”

“For killing him,” Izzie said.

Crazy amount of duct tape. Took forever to get it all off, free her from the pipe. She fell to the dirt floor with a thump. The candle burned near her face. The other twin was a lot prettier now.

“Bad news,” Freedy said. “They fucked me.”

The gold eye, the one that would open, opened. “I need a doctor.” So quiet he could hardly hear her, even with his super hearing.

“Say that again and you won’t.” He wasn’t in the mood. What was he going to do with her? The simple solution was asset destruction, moving on. But moving on to what, exactly? And he’d invested a lot in her. Plus there was still the potential for a big payoff. He just needed a time-out, that was all, to rethink.

“Feel like a little spin?” he said to her.

She just lay there.

“Get up,” he said, louder and not so friendly.

They heard him. On the other side of the wall, Izzie turned sideways, raised one foot high like a trained Thai kick boxer, precisely as Grace had done the night they found the tunnels, and kicked in the wooden paneling in the big room of the old social club. Nat shone his flash through the opening, and there they were in a little square room lit by a single tall candle balanced on the dirt floor, Grace on her back, hair matted with blood, Freedy crouched over her.

Izzie saw her sister’s face and made a horrible sound. The next instant she was diving through the hole in the wall, switchblade glinting in the candlelight, so quick. But Freedy was quicker. Somehow he was already up, already slapping at her arm as though he’d known what was coming. The next moment, she was down. By that time, Nat was in the little room too, flashlight raised high, striking with all his strength at the back of Freedy’s head.

He never connected. Without even looking, Freedy jabbed with his elbow, a pistonlike blow that caught Nat just under the rib cage, knocking the wind out of him, knocking him down. The candle fell, started rolling, rolled through the hole in the wall, dropped down into the big room on the other side. Then Freedy’s fist started landing, although Nat couldn’t see a thing, flashlight smashed, candle gone. He took a punch in the back, scrambled away, felt Grace. He found her hand, not warm, not cold, the same temperature as his.

Nat held on to her, would hold on to her at any cost; but then came that fist, and again, and he felt her slipping, slipping away, and gone.

Total darkness. Didn’t bother Freedy. This was his territory. Freedy slung the girl over his shoulder and carried her out of the little square room and into F. Had he ever felt stronger? No. This kind of challenge or whatever it was brought out the best in him. He headed down F, the girl on his shoulder, at a fast walking pace, almost trotting in total darkness. Didn’t bother him. He turned into Z, invisible Z, without breaking stride. Z, on the way to building 13: now came the beauty part.

Total darkness: until flames shot up on the other side of the wall. Nat felt heat flowing in through the hole. He rose. Izzie was already up, the knife, half the blade snapped off, in her hand. They stepped out into a tunnel they didn’t know, heard a grunt in the distance, hurried after the sound. Flickering light followed them for a few yards, dwindled to nothing. They kept going, almost running in the darkness. Nat kept one hand on the wall; he didn’t know how Izzie was doing it. She was a little ahead, then more so.

Suddenly his hand felt nothing but empty space. He froze. “This way,” she called from somewhere on his right. “Another tunnel.” He followed her. She moved so fast, almost as though she could see in the dark. He heard another grunt, Freedy’s grunt, much closer now.

And another, closer still, followed by a moan, a female moan. Nat caught up with Izzie, brushed against her, took her hand: ice cold. He felt something else, a sort of breeze, a damp breeze, blowing in his face from the direction they were headed. “Wait,” he said in Izzie’s ear.

“Piss on that,” she said, shook him off, kept going. He went after her, stumbled on something soft.