Warren Murphy: Blood Lust

Oh, there were a few rattling groans coming from heaps of broken limbs, but Remo took them as praise.

"Only doing my job," he said modestly.

The sound of commotion drew his attention to the remaining rooms. The noise the last bodies had made as they went through the windows had awoken even the most stupefied inhabitant of the house.

The house shook with the rattle of feet pounding on stairs.

Remo rushed out to intercept the escapees. A few made attempts to shoot him down. A weapon burped here. An automatic snapped there.

Remo dodged each bullet as he had been taught so long ago, with lightning ease. The bullets came so fast they cut shock waves in the air ahead of them. Sensing the approaching turbulence, Remo simply shifted out of the way. Even when they came from behind. His body automatically retreated from the warning pressure. He was like a paper kite that gave before the slightest wind. Except Remo wasn't at the mercy of those breezes. He gave before them, only then cutting away from the deadly bullets he could not always see coming.

Chuk! Chuk! Chuk! Chuk!

Holes chopped through wallboard where he had been. Remo kept moving.

Four men were pounding down the stairs. Remo went to the top runner and, bending at waist and knees, drove straight fingers into the wood. The staircase collapsed like a linchpin had been removed.

The quartet found themselves groaning and squirming in an astonishingly abrupt pile of splinters, like victims of a bombing.

"Did I mention the termite problem on this street?" Remo asked.

Someone tried sneaking up behind him. The sound of a clip driving home gave him away. Remo whirled, taking hold of the would-be assailant's gun arm with both hands.

Naturally, the man opened up with his automatic weapon.

Remo let him empty the clip, first making sure the muzzle was pointing down the nonexistent steps where four men groaned. Bone and meat spattered the walls. The groaning in the broken runners trailed off into dying gurgles.

The gunman added a stricken "What'd I do?" to the cacophony.

"I think you got the termites," Remo told him, brightvoiced.

The gunman spat an unintelligible curse. Remo showed him how deadly even an empty pistol can be when it strikes one's own belly muscles with pile-driver force. Whump! Behind his ridged abdomen, the gunman's stomach burst like a balloon.

With a careless toss, Remo sent him into the pile.

Crasshh!

He was number eighteen.

Remo Williams made a final sweep of the rooms. They were empty. But warm beds and a chair seat told him there were more unaccounted-for occupants. The closet gave up only one. A fat ball of blubber with a ring on every finger and one through each nostril.

Crouching on the floor, he tried diving out between Remo's legs. Remo faded back and used his head for a walnut. The slamming door and jamb were the nutcracker.

Cruunch!

Remo put his head out into the hallway.

"Come out, come out, whereever you are," he invited. His voice was cheerful.

Stealthy movement came from over his head.

"Ah-hah!" Remo said softly. "Naughty little children. They're hiding in the attic."

Reaching up, Remo felt the ceiling plaster. A slight but visible bowing told him of a foot coming to rest. Using both hands, Remo followed the man's progress. He was creeping to a definite spot in the attic.

As if walking with his hands, Remo followed the creeping feet to another room, where a drop ladder hung down from a square well. The man was creeping to the well.

Dropping his hands, Remo beat him to the ladder.

Remo waited, his face just under the square black hole. His grin widened. He flexed his thick wrists.

Presently a wide-eyed face came into view, a pistol close by. He looked around. His eyes locked on Remo's.

"Boo!" Remo said.

"Yahh!" the man returned, whipping down his weapon.

Remo reached up and pulled him bodily down the steps, making sure his face hit every rung. After the man had collapsed on the floor, Remo took pains to shatter his spine in three places.

Then he yanked the ladder away and stood back as someone spanked the trapdoor back into place. Feet stampeded.

Folding his arms. Remo listened.

"He got Derrick!" a voice wailed. He was one of the top-of-the-stairs guards who had retreated earlier.

"He gonna get us too," the other said. His missing companion. "Why'd we had to move into this damn neighborhood in the first place? I told you it was no damn good. Ain't no malls for three miles!"

"You shut up!" the first voice said tensely.

While they were arguing, Remo zeroed in on their exact location. He reached up and rapped once on the plaster with his fist, asking, "Anybody home?"

"That crazy guy! He's right under us. Shoot the fool!"

A spurt of bullets rained down, creating a salt-shaker-lid effect in a circle of ceiling plaster.

From a safe corner, Remo watched the plaster dust and Spackle rain down.

"You get him?" a muffled voice wondered.

"I ain't sure."

"Better check," the other said cautiously.

"I ain't gonna check! How am I gonna do that?"

"Try putting your eye to one of the holes," Remo called up helpfully.

"He ain't dead! You missed!"

Another bratt of sound chopped bits of plaster the length of the ceiling, peppering the floor. Remo faded out into the hall while the air cleared of settling white dust.

"Try again," Remo suggested. "You almost got me that time."

Two weapons opened up next. They fired as the gunman backed away, Remo's keen eyes spotting the imperceptible trail of bulges on the plaster. Obviously the attic floor wasn't well-shored with timber.

He maneuvered around the chewing bullets to a point where the steady track of bulges seemed to head.

When one pair of footsteps came close, Remo drove a hand up through the crumbling plaster. He took hold of an ankle. He yanked.

An Air Jordan athletic shoe came down through the crumbly hole. So did a howl of fright.

"He got me! Motherfuck got my ankle!"

"He's gonna get both your ankles," Remo warned. "And then your legs. And then your throat."

"He's gonna get my throat!" the man wailed.

Footsteps pounded up. Remo knew what was coming. He let go of the frantic ankle and slid over to one side, ready to dodge in any direction.

The storm of lead doubled the size of the ceiling hole that framed the jerking ankle. The entire leg started to slide down. An exploding kneecap punched through the plaster.

Syrupy red blood began dripping down. The leg quivered briefly as if shaking off a cramp. Then it simply relaxed.

"Oh, sorry, Darnell. Sorry, man," the last remaining voice said. "I was just tryin' to get the dude."

Remo got under the pitiful sounds of contrition and sent both fists through. The plaster heaved up. Scabby sections fell. The man ran around, screaming and firing wildly.

"You ain't gonna get me, asshole!" he howled furiously. "I ain't coming down!"

Bullets peppered the ceiling all around Remo. He wove between the spurts, taking care not to trip over the splintery holes that were collecting in the polished pine flooring.

Upstairs, the gunman was replacing clips frantically. He must have had an arsenal up there because he seemed never to run out of ammunition. Every so often he paused as if listening.

Remo encouraged him to continue wasting his ammunition with a taunting, "Nope, I'm not dead yet," in a mordant voice he had once heard in an old cartoon. "Try again."

Each time, the gunman obliged him with blistering return fire.

Soon the ceiling stopped being a ceiling. Instead, it was now an upside-down moonscape of pocked holes and shattered plaster.

When the holes became as big as portholes, Remo shot the man an encouraging wave.