Christopher Smith - Running of the bulls

“It’s just him upstairs?”

“Yes,” she said.

He cocked his head at her. “And he strung all of you up by himself?”

“No,” Jennifer said. Her voice was barely audible. There was a faint wheezing sound when she spoke. “There were two others.”

“He had help, but they ran,” Carra said cautiously. She looked down at Lasker and then crouched to press her hand against his cheek. “They killed him. They helped Max do this and they ran when they put those nooses around our necks and hoisted us up.” She motioned toward Jennifer. “When she came to the door, they knocked her unconscious and dragged her in here. I saw it happen.”

Marty turned to her. “Is that true?”

She nodded.

Again, Mark Andrews: “I’m fine,” he said with an irritated voice. “Get your hands off me and go upstairs. He’s there. The staircase is just behind the bar. Move!”

Above them, a retreating.

Marty looked at Maggie. “You ready?”

The determination in her voice was as clear as the gun now clutched in her hand. “I’m ready.”

“Then let’s do this.”

Wolfhagen stood in the center of the sprawling second floor, where most of the walls had been knocked down, likely by Carra and Lasker, to provide for a more open, free-flowing space. Essentially, this was a replica of the main floor. A second bar was here and in a broad nod at the old Bull Pen, painted above it in money-green was a giant bull with a ring through its snout.

He could hear them down below. The police. He’d heard Andrews shout orders at them twice, warning them that he was up here and waiting for them. And the cripple was right. He was waiting for them and he would kill them. They wouldn’t take him again. Wolfhagen was either walking out of here or he’d die here.

In this dim hollow of dark fetishes, Wolfhagen found exactly what he’d use on them when they took the stairs. He went to it, grabbed the bottle of 150 proof vodka he found at the bar, and started dousing the object until it was sheeted with liquid. And then he retrieved a second bottle of vodka and soaked it again until the liquid leached inside the cavity and dripped from every corner.

Like Carra, Lasker and the reporter, Wolfhagen also had been strung up. But he managed to break free and take the gun Carra’s assassins placed on the bar before they left. They put the gun there and said that freedom was just below should anyone want it. What they really meant is that whoever broke free first could have the gun, kill the rest and escape before they were found out.

Wolfhagen was that person. He was taller than the rest and found enough footing on the bar to lift himself up, remove the noose, topple to the ground and grab the gun. He came up here to find a grislier way to kill them all when he heard a commotion, the sound of bodies dropping, and then Andrews directing the police.

Carra was wrong. He wasn’t afraid of death. If it came, it came. What frightened Wolfhagen more than anything was not leaving a mark.

Since he had transformed himself at Yale, it’s what he always feared-the idea that he might slip back and become that nobody freak everyone loathed when he was growing up. Now, if he could pull this off correctly, he had a chance to not only take out the police, but also everyone else in the room below.

After that, he faced the challenge of getting out alive, but if he could manage it, all Wolfhagen needed to do was get to the front door. Run out into the night. Disappear forever into the world.

Marty and Maggie moved around the bar and came to the grand staircase that led to the second floor, which was in darkness. Maggie ran her hand along the wall to the left searching for a light switch while Marty darted across the staircase and did the same on the right wall.

The switch was on the left.

They stepped back into the first floor’s main room, tucked their bodies against the wall and looked at each other, their guns poised and ready.

Maggie tapped his thigh.

Gingerly, Marty reached out and snapped on the lights. He jerked his hand away and listened. Light was now fanning down the stairwell toward them. They listened and, at first, could hear nothing. There were no footsteps. There was no movement. And they wondered. Was Wolfhagen waiting at the top of the stairs for them? Was he waiting for one of them to peer around so he could blow a hole through their head?

Quietly, Marty dropped to the ground and got on his stomach. He positioned his gun in such a way that it was pointing up the stairs. Maggie inched forward and leveled her gun in front of her. The barrel was about an inch from the end of the wall. If Wolfhagen shot at Marty, she’d swing around and take him out.

He looked up at her, saw that she was ready and eased his head so he could look up the staircase.

Nothing.

He motioned for her to look. And when she did, nothing changed to something.

The floor started to creak. They could hear the distinct sound of something rolling. It was coming quickly, so quickly, in fact, that Marty got to his feet and looked up at the staircase with Maggie. And when they did, there was the sound of something igniting, a fresh blast of heat rolled down the staircase, and then a large bloom of fire mushroomed toward the second-floor ceiling as it came into view.

What they saw was a grand piano. It was engulfed in flames and it stopped just short of going over the staircase. Behind it was Wolfhagen, his face caught in the curling cascade of flames.

He was grinning down at them. Maggie took a shot at him but missed. Marty ran to the other side of the staircase to see if he could get a better view, but it was worse here. Wolfhagen was hidden behind the growing fire.

And then came Wolfhagen’s voice. “You want to fuck with me? Then you better have the balls to fuck with me. Tonight, I win.”

Maggie took aim and shot again just as he gave the piano a massive push.

It was as if it came from hell.

Ablaze and dripping liquid fire onto the staircase’s old carpet, which quickly caught with flame, the piano teetered for a moment at the top step before it started to thump and bump down the staircase. Flames sprayed and sparks flew as it shook the building and built momentum. And then there was the sound it made-thousands of notes playing at once, wires snapping, wood splintering. It was a concerto of the damned and the music it made filled the space as if a madman was directing it.

Transfixed, Marty and Maggie watched it come toward them. They watched it jump over stairs and gather speed as it flew through the air like some fiery, misshaped, musical comet. In the vacuum of heat building within it, the piano’s lid blew off and shot toward the ceiling, where it hung in the air just long enough to catch the ceiling on fire before it smashed back onto the piano.

“Run!” Marty shouted.

The piano slammed into the wall at the base of the stairwell. The force was so great, it blew the piano apart, but the fire remained and it quickly spread, licking the old wallpaper and moving with surprising speed up the walls, over the ceiling and into the room on the second floor, where Wolfhagen now was trapped and would bake if he didn’t get out soon.

Maggie looked at Marty, who was peering up the stairs, and when she did, she saw Carra Wolfhagen’s face emerge faintly in the room behind him.

Given the veils of smoke, the debris and the fire billowing up from the piano, Carra appeared to be an orange ghost hovering behind him in the dark room. At first, Maggie wasn’t sure why she was here. Was it to see her husband burn? But as Carra drew closer and Maggie saw that she was holding a gun, she knew differently and took position.