Brian Keene - Terminal

“All right,” I humored him, “let’s go back here with the others, then we’ll help him.”

“You’re sick too, Mr. Tommy. You know that, right?”

I almost dropped John. It felt like Kelvin had shot me in the stomach too.

“W-what did you say?”

“You’re sick too. Not your ear. That will go away in a little bit. But you’ve got bad things growing inside you, like spiderwebs. Black things. It’s okay, Mr. Tommy. I’ll make you feel better.”

He lowered his voice.

“Your other friend is sick too, but it’s different. He has the darkness inside his head, and it’s getting ready to bubble out. It’s going to be soon. The monster people are whispering.”

Having forced the others into the vault at gunpoint, Sherm poked his head back into the lobby, gave me a warning glance, and began reloading his .357, pulling the bullets from his pocket.

“Where did you get those?”

His voice sounded like the buzz of a bee.

“At the sporting goods store. Why?”

“I thought when we bought the guns from Wallace that we said we only needed six in the chamber. That we didn’t need more bullets. You said there wasn’t going to be any shooting, Sherm.”

He walked toward me.

“Figured it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.” He cocked a thumb at Kelvin’s body. “And aren’t you glad that I did?”

He bent down over the body of his first victim, the guy in the leather jacket who had pulled a pistol. His head was still dribbling blood. Sherm picked up the man’s weapon, checked the chamber, and pocketed it with a smile.

“Thirty-eight special. Loaded too. Not bad. Might come in handy before this shit is over.”

My ear seemed to be clearing up a bit, just as Benjy had promised. The sounds were rushing back, and I could hear the commotion outside again.

Sherm began rummaging through the dead man’s pockets. He found a silver cigarette lighter and kept that too. Then he rolled the body over and pulled a wallet from the corpse’s back pocket. He flipped it open and looked at the driver’s license. A second later, he snorted with laughter.

“What?” My headache had apparently decided to come back with my hearing. Outside, the cops were starting to move closer again.

“It says here that the guy’s name was Mac Davis.”

“You mean like that singer back in the seventies?”

“Yeah. Too frigging cool, dog—I shot Mac Davis!”

He said it casually, but there was a hint of something else beneath the words. Sherm was starting to lose it. Hell, I don’t know. Looking back on it now, I think maybe he’d lost it long before we ever walked into that bank. Sherm may have been my friend, but I never trusted him one hundred percent. Neither had John. Our conversation from the night we drove to York looking for guns echoed in my mind.

“Sometimes Sherm scares me,” John had whispered. “Sometimes I think he’s crazy.”

“Me too,” I’d replied.

“Me too.”

Sherm looked up. “You say something?”

“Nothing. Yo, we got to get moving, Sherm. The cops are creeping up again. Give me a hand with John, okay? He feels like a sack of potatoes.”

“What’s that on the floor, mister?” Benjy asked Sherm, pointing at his feet. Something bright and shiny had fallen from Mac Davis’s jacket.

A badge.

“Oh fuck me running.”

Sherm closed his eyes, removed his ski mask, and ran a hand through his greasy hair. The guy in the leather jacket, a.k.a. Mr. Mac Davis, recently deceased, hadn’t been a singer like his namesake. He’d been a police officer. I would find out later that he’d been off duty, coming home from the night shift.

“Sherm,” I choked, “you shot a fucking cop…”

Then I threw up all over my shoes.

We left Kelvin and Mac Davis lying where they were, and finished cramming the hostages into the vault. The group was obedient and followed our orders—sitting on the floor quietly with their backs against the steel walls. Benjy returned to his mother, and when I caught her eye, I tried to give her a reassuring smile. She glared back at me and looked away. The old woman caressed her cross, stroking it lovingly, and muttered an occasional “Oh my” and the fat guy in the Hellboy shirt was panting like a dog. Both of the tellers sniffled, their tears slowly drying up as the reality of the situation hit them and shock set in. The bearded guy in the chambray shirt continued to soothe the older teller, assuring her that it would all be okay. He looked at her the way I looked at Michelle sometimes, and it was so easy to see—written all over his face. I wondered just how long he’d been using this bank. How long had he been in love with her? Did she even know about it?

Sherm rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a roll of duct tape. He grinned, and the sweat on his forehead glistened beneath his dirty hair.

“Okay,” he announced. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We don’t want to kill any more of you—”

“Why stop now?” Keith sneered. “You’re on a roll. Do you get points for each one you kill or something?”

Sherm slapped him hard across one cheek, then the other. Then he clutched Keith’s left earlobe between his index finger and thumb and gave it a savage, jerking twist. Keith howled in pain, glaring back at him with hatred burning in his eyes.

“Say one more word, asshole. I fucking dare you.”

Keith opened his mouth, glanced at the frightened looks of his employees and customers, who shook their heads in silence to urge him to keep quiet, and shut it again.

“Now,” Sherm continued, “as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. I’m gonna duct tape your hands behind your backs. If you all promise to behave, I won’t tape your feet or your mouths shut—well, except for you, Keith. While I am doing this, my associate, Tommy, is going to make sure that none of you move. If you do, he is going to shoot you in the fucking face. Fair enough?”

He directed the question to them but looked at me as he asked it. I nodded in understanding along with the rest of them.

“Good.”

I wondered why he had brought a roll of duct tape along with him when the plan had originally been to get away, but I didn’t ask.

“Mommy,” Benjy whispered, “I have to go pee.”

“Do it in your pants,” Sherm said, jerking his thumb toward the comic book fan. “It was good enough for fat boy over there.”

He knelt by the old woman. Trembling, she opened her mouth to speak.

“Oh…”

“What’s your name?” Sherm asked her.

“Martha.”

“Martha, so help me God, if you say ‘Oh my’ one more time, I’m going to cut your head off and stump fuck your neck. Do you know what a stump fuck is?”

“N-n-no…”

“A stump fuck is when I insert my penis into the orifice provided by the wound and I fuck it.”

He thrust his hips back and forth.

“O—”

“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare fucking say it.”

Her mouth hung open, but no sound came out.

“Too bad. I could have used a good nut.”

Despite his threats, Sherm allowed Martha to keep her hands in her lap. I guess he figured she wasn’t a threat. He taped her wrists together, and moved on to the elderly bald man.

“Give me your cane. You ain’t going to be needing it anytime soon. We’re not going anywhere.”

The old man did as he was told. Sherm slid it across the floor toward me and wrapped his hands together too.

“You boys are in a lot of trouble,” the old man observed.

“No shit?” Sherm scoffed. “Thanks for letting us know, Pops. I hadn’t figured that out yet. Anything else you want to let us in on?”

“Why make it worse by taking hostages? Why not just let us go?”