Dastardly Bastard(49)

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Donald screamed. Mark knew he had just given Squirt the worst possible view of the monster—a full frontal shot. “Faster, damn it! Move it, Tubby!”

Donald didn’t have to tell him twice. Mark had played football in high school. He knew once he got his weight moving, the momentum would carry him faster than his legs could. Coach Peterson had made it abundantly clear that uncontrolled momentum could make a person stumble face first into the turf. Mark knew there was no turf. It would not be a soft landing if he should lose his footing. He leaned back a little, pulling his gut in and up. The action didn’t help his fight for oxygen. In fact, it made him dizzy. Bright, sparkling stars exploded in his vision. He feared he would go down despite his efforts. Then, the terrible beastie would gobble Donald and him all up.

“The houses! Inside, asshole. Inside! Get us out of here!” Donald wailed from over Mark’s shoulder.

Houses, Mark thought. Squirt said houses. Not mouses!

The rows of tract homes did seem like a temporary reprieve. As if Justine and Lyle had heard Donald’s demands, which wasn’t possible given they were about a football field away, the two cut left into the front yard of an old Victorian number with high arches and a slanted roof.

Mark decided he was closer to the right side of the tract. He concentrated very hard on stepping up and onto the curb instead of tripping on the concrete and serving Donald and himself up on a silver platter. Just as he reached the sidewalk, Mark saw the monster in his peripheral vision as it tore a mailbox from its base and hurled it at him. The steel compartment sailed over Mark’s right shoulder, barely grazing him. Mark was suddenly very glad he hadn’t thrown Donald over that shoulder. He was sure Squirt felt the same way.

“Go, go, go, go!” Donald erupted. The little guy slammed the balls of his palms into Mark’s back.

Mark leaned further into his escape, his legs burning, Donald squealing, his mind spinning from the lack of oxygen, not slowing, not even when he jumped the single step onto the porch of the house. Stopping was no longer an option. He just prayed that the door wasn’t made of oak or something even sturdier. He prayed it was made of plywood, or balsa, or fucking paper. And Mark was not a praying man.

He took the entire door off at the hinges. He was all too glad at that one, precise moment to weigh every bit of his five hundred pounds. Thank God he hadn’t lost that weight.

Mark tripped on the kick plate even as he broke down the door. The momentum he’d gained set him and Donald rocketing into the foyer. Mark landed hard on the broken door and almost cartwheeled end over end. Donald was flung into the hallway. The little guy rolled, trashing a table with pictures on it, sending the frames flying. Glass shattered, wood cracked, and all the while, Donald kept going, disappearing through an open door.

When Mark’s body finally came to a rest, he found his knee was screaming with pain. He felt the skin over his kneecap tear a little when he tried to pull it away from the wood. A very clear picture came into his head, one where his knee had been driven into the door, creating a mouth lined with sharp, splintered wood, and those makeshift teeth had sunk into his knee. He cursed loudly, calling for Donald. He didn’t know what help Squirt could be, but that monster was still coming.

At some point in time, Mark had lost track of his counting. Lying there on his belly, he began to count again. He knew it wouldn’t help, but at least he would leave the world in a settled state of mind. He didn’t want to go knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door with a clouded head.





36


LYLE LAKE WANTED VERY BADLY to give up, but his father’s voice wouldn’t let him. He’d lost his mother, the last remnant of everything he loved in this world, but Dad didn’t care. His boy was going to survive. He was a goddamn Lake!

“Don’t you quit on me, Brody. Don’t you dare quit!”

“Yes… sir!”

“What?” Justine asked from beside him. She was breathing hard, starting to slow.

Lyle could only imagine how bad off the camera man and the little guy were. He was backing down on his promise to help Mark, the man who had saved his life back on the trail, but somehow he knew they would be fine. Those two had survived so far, they would just have to make it a little longer. Or a lot longer. He had no way of knowing for sure.

“There! Look!” Justine yelled.

Lyle looked at where she was pointing. The house was huge, almost mansion-like, with high arches and white columns. The gray roof was slanted, with a large hole in it, possibly where a chimney should have been. The windows were devoid of glass, only frames built of two-by-fours showed in the bays. Lyle noticed there was no front door either.

The boy stood in the opening where the door should have been. He was around Lyle’s age, with blond hair that parted over the strap of an eye patch. Lyle had no idea why he should be afraid of him, but he was, nonetheless.

The boy waved and called, “In here.”

“Come on!” Justine veered toward the porch.

Not liking the idea, but seeing no other course of action, Lyle turned, sprinting across the yard and up the steps, making it there just before Justine. He closed the gap to the doorway’s empty frame in just three long strides. He came to a sliding stop inside, looking all around, trying to take in everything he was seeing. The inner walls of the house had yet to be installed. Lyle could see right through the boarded frames. No plumbing or wiring was strung through the empty space. A pile of carpentry supplies lay off to one side, ten feet from where he stood. A door with gaudy glass latticework sat lonely and abandoned, leaning on the far wall. The fireplace that led up to the yet-to-be-installed chimney chute smoked as if a fire had been there recently. Lyle wondered who’d light a fireplace in a home that wasn’t even ready to be lived in.