Beware. Part 16

As Scott and Lacey reached the edge of the crowd, an elevator arrived. Its double doors slid open, but the small enclosure was already packed. A roar of protest bellowed from those inside as the mob pressed forward. Through a gap in the crowd, Lacey saw one of the men in the elevator jerked out. Amid darting fists, a new man took his place. The doors rolled halfway shut, then slid open again. A tiny, dark-haired man leapt high, clambering over the shoulders and heads of those inside, his right hand clasping a black leather case. A moment later, the doors closed.

"What'll we do?" Lacey asked.

"Forget the elev..."

A woman's shriek rose above the tumult. Lacey looked, couldn't see her, then saw the b.l.o.o.d.y head of a fire ax rise above the figures at the far side of the crowd. It swung down. The mob parted, people stumbling out of the way, yelling and screaming. The ax chopped down, knocking through the upraised arm of a man staggering backward, and split his head. As he fell, the ax swung sideways, biting into the belly of a naked woman-the one whose nightgown had caught fire earlier.

Lacey gaped as the slaughter continued, the ax chopping from side to side, catching people in the chest and belly and throat. They fought and tripped over each other, trying to get away. For an instant, Lacey glimpsed the length of the weapon. It swung, held by no one-no one she could see. It hacked through a man's neck. His severed head tumbled through the air, spraying blood.

Lacey clutched Scott's arm. "It's him!" she shouted.

"Come on!"

"Where?"

Side by side, they raced down the corridor. As they neared the corner, Lacey looked back. The ax had finished hacking its way through the mob. Splatters of blood hung suspended in the air behind it. Abruptly, it lurched forward.

Lacey gasped, and rounded the corner after Scott. He threw himself against the door of Hamlin's room-locked.

"Come on!"

They rushed farther down the short hall, leaping past the small fire spreading around the dead man like a pool of strange, burning blood.

The next door, too, was locked.

Only three remained. Scott glanced at them, apparently decided they would offer no more than this one, and drew out his automatic. He blasted a single shot through the area where the lock tongue entered the frame, and kicked the door open.

Lacey looked back.

The ax flew at her, flipping end over end.

Scott jerked her inside and slammed the door. He threw himself against it.

"Get a chair!" he yelled.

Lacey dashed across the room, grabbed a straightbacked chair from beneath the table, and ran with it to Scott. He braced it under the k.n.o.b.

An instant later, the door thundered. An ax head burst through it, high up, throwing out a shower of splinters.

"You're mine!" a man's voice cried out. "Mine, c.u.n.t!"

The ax crashed again through the door, this time lower, smashing the chair down from the k.n.o.b. The door flew open.

Gunfire shocked Lacey's ears, and she gazed at Scott. He was crouched and snarling, the automatic bucking in his grip as he fired shot after shot at the doorway.

Lacey covered her ears against the gun's endless roar.

The ax lunged forward, jerking in midair, and dropped to the floor.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

"Spray him," Scott snapped as he braced the door shut.

Kneeling, Lacey aimed the paint can toward the ax. She pressed down the nozzle. A fine, silvery cloud sprayed out and drifted down, spreading into a layer half a foot above the carpet. As she moved the can back and forth, the surface took on features. She saw the heavily muscled, jutting slopes of shoulder blades, and realized she must be kneeling at his head. She gave it a quick blast. The paint misted his thick hair and sprayed cool against her own thighs. With a quick sweep to the right, she coated one of his arms. Then she sprayed the other. Its thick hand still gripped the haft of the ax.

Scott crouched and pried the fingers loose. He held the wrist. "Still has a pulse," he muttered. "Hit lower, let's find the wounds."

Lacey sprayed down the long, tapering expanse of his back. She hesitated at his waist, but only for a moment. Invisibility was his greatest weapon: painting him was like cutting Samson's hair. The h.e.l.l with modesty. She sprayed his b.u.t.tocks.

Then she took her finger off the nozzle and stared at his shiny back, at its three gaping, ragged wounds. Looking into them, she saw the green carpet several inches down. Clear, silverdusted fluid overflowed the holes.

At the shoulder, she saw the crater of a healed gunshot wound. Near the center of his back was a narrow, inch-long ridge. The knife wound from Wednesday night? She touched it, feeling an edge of hardness. A scab? Her finger came away wet with paint. As she wiped it on her shorts, the fire alarm stopped blaring.

She looked at Scott. He shrugged.

In the quiet, she heard distant voices.

"Maybe it's out," Scott said, his voice sounding odd in the stillness.

His hands moved from wound to wound. "I missed the heart, thank G.o.d. Not much flow. If I didn't hit a major vessel..." He took off his shirt, and ripped its sleeves off. Folding one of the sleeves into a thick pad, he pressed it tightly to a wound near the side of the back. "Hold it there," he said. "Hard."

While Lacey kept the pad in place, he folded his other sleeve and pressed it to a second wound, lower down. Lacey held that one for him. He tore his shirt up the back, and used one of the halves to make another compress. He pushed it against the final wound.

"Right back," he said. He hurried away and returned seconds later, holding a suitcase. He dropped it to the floor and threw it open. Crouching, he rummaged through it. He flung out a pair of panty hose, a half slip, several pairs of briefs. "Those'll do," he muttered. He took out a leather case, jerked open its zipper, and upended it. Out fell scissors, a plastic container of rubber bands and safety pins, a tiny sewing kit, a tube of Krazy Glue, a Swiss Army knife, and a roll of adhesive tape. "Fantastic!" he blurted. He snapped open the metal canister of tape.

Tearing off a strip, he tried to secure one of the bandages in place. The tape slid on the wet paint. Scott cursed under his breath, then grabbed the torn remnant of his shirt from the floor and swabbed the man's back, clearing off excess paint around the compresses until each was surrounded by no more than a vague, translucent stain. He tested the tape: it held.

Working together, Scott and Lacey quickly secured the pads to his back.

"Let's turn him."

They rolled him onto his back.

"Don't paint him yet. I'll work by touch." He picked up a pair of nylon briefs, scowled, and tossed them aside. Then he pulled a cotton blouse from the suitcase and started to tear off its sleeves. As he folded them into pads, Lacey gazed down at the strange, sprawled shape of the man.

He looked like a legless, one-sided sculpture molded of aluminum foil. Circles of carpet were visible around his bandages. The unreality of the sight made Lacey ner vous. "I want to spray him," she said. "I'll stay away from the chest."

Scott nodded. He bent over, a compress in one hand, reaching down with his other hand like a mime pretending to examine a make-believe patient.

Lacey aimed the paint can at the silver half-sh.e.l.l of the man's nearest arm, and sprayed. The paint wrapped over it, and the arm was suddenly human. Crawling past Scott, she sprayed the other arm. Then she scurried alongside the body. Using the concave globes of his rump as a guide, she sprayed the tops of both legs. Then she lifted them at the ankles and coated their undersides.

Scott was busy applying the final compress as Lacey shot spray from hip to hip, spreading a silver layer over the man's groin.

She stared at his p.e.n.i.s. It lay to one side. Even flaccid, it looked thick and heavy, much larger than others she'd seen. No wonder it had felt so enormous inside her-ramming painfully, stretching her, making her bleed.

Disgusted, she looked away.

Scott met her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah."

Down the hall, someone knocked roughly on wood. "Fire's out," called a strong voice.

"Quick," Scott said. "Get the ax."

Lacey picked it up. Scott grabbed the man's hands and raised his back off the floor. He dragged him away from the door. He pulled him around a corner of the room, and let him down alongside a wall. Then he took the ax from Lacey. He lifted a corner of the mattress, and hid the ax beneath it.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go see."

"Just...leave him here?"

"Come on." Scott slid his automatic under the bed, and hurried to the door. As they stepped into the smoky corridor, a policeman came out of the first room-Hamlin's room. He pivoted, bringing up his ser vice revolver.

"Thank G.o.d you're h ere," Scott blurted. "Some maniac..."

"I know." The cop holstered his pistol.

A fireman with a smudged face stepped out of the room.

"Came after us with a G.o.ddam ax," Scott said. "We were over by the elevators, and...Christ, did you see what he did to those people? He came after us-my wife and I..." Scott put an arm around Lacey. "We barely got away. He tried to bash our door down."

"What did he look like? Couldn't get a decent description from the others."

The fireman walked past them, past their broken door, and knocked on the next door down. "Fire's out," he called. "Anybody here?"

"Describe him," the cop said. Glancing at the fireman, he called, "Don't go in there without me."

"Tall, maybe sixtwo. Long dark hair."

"Caucasian?" the cop asked, writing on his notepad.

"Yes. Maybe thirty years old. He was wearing pajamas. Striped pajamas. Blue and white. I'm not sure, but I think he went out there." Scott pointed at the fire door across from Hamlin's room. "Didn't see him, but the door made a metal sound, you know, like it was closing."

"ID?"

"Ours?" Scott asked.

"Please."

Scott slipped a wallet from his hip pocket. He pulled out the driver's license and handed it to the officer.

"Name?"

"Scott Bradley."

"This is your current address?"

"Yes."

He copied the information, then returned the license. "Thank you, Mr. Bradley, missus. Now you two go on downstairs, see one of the officers in the lobby."

"Can we get some things from the room?"

"Go ahead." The policeman stepped past them.

Scott and Lacey entered the room. Scott shut the door.

"Now what?" Lacey asked.

"I don't know. I've got to think. They're clearing the building. We have to get him out of here, somehow."

"Why don't we turn him over to the police?"

"Now? Are you joking? I've got to have a few hours alone with him."

"But..."

"We could make a million bucks off the guy. n.o.body's going to get a crack at him till I've had a chance to get his story."

"If he dies..."

"Bite your tongue," Scott said.

They stepped around the corner and Lacey looked down at the man. His chest and face were still unpainted. The chest bandages seemed to hang in s.p.a.ce above his silver back.

"Okay," Scott said. "Let's leave him. We'll come back and pick him up later."

Together, they pushed the body under the nearest bed. Scott retrieved his automatic. He shoved it into a front pocket, but the grips protruded. In the suitcase by the door, he found a pink bathrobe. He put it on and belted it. "How do I look?"

The robe was much too small, his shoulders straining the fabric, the sleeves reaching only halfway down his forearms.

"Pink's your color," Lacey said.

"We'd better make sure we get back here before the lady," he muttered, and turned off the lights.