Walkers. Part 12

The shout never left Peter's throat. In a single swift motion the big man brought up the dangling thing he carried and whipped it around Peter's neck, cutting off his breath instantly.

Peter's hands flew to his throat, his fingers clawing for air. His sense of touch flashed the brain the irrelevant message that he was being strangled by a silk necktie. The more he struggled, the tighter drew the noose.

The face of the big man swam and wavered before Peter's eyes. Pinpoints of light danced in the darkness. The pressure on his throat was agonizing. Peter's last clear mental image was of a Tarot card-The Hanged Man. He heard, rather than felt, the soft crunch when his larynx collapsed. It was the end of all sensation.

The big man, still gripping the tie that cut into Peter's neck, dragged the inert form across the gra.s.s and into a thick clump of ferns out of sight from the house or from the street. Then he turned back toward the house and resumed the stiff, loping walk toward Joana's door.

Chapter 14.

Inside the house, Joana and Glen waited. They sat close together on a low sofa Joana had bought at a used-furniture store and recovered herself. A log burned in the fireplace without producing much warmth. They tried fitfully to talk, but both of them kept looking expectantly at the front door.

"What do you suppose Peter wants to see you about?" Glen said.

"I don't know," Joana said, "but whatever it is, it sounded serious."

Conversation died, and the two young people sat silently waiting.

A sudden noise from out in front of the house made them both start. There was a soft thump, then an indistinct shuffling sound. They turned and looked at each other. Glen tried a smile that did not come off.

"That must be Peter," Joana said.

"Must be."

Joana got up and walked over to the door. She opened it, peering out into the darkness. At first she could see nothing. Then she made out a shadowy male figure walking toward her across the lawn.

"Peter? Is that you?" Even as she spoke, Joana saw that the man approaching was too tall and too broad in the shoulders to be Peter Landau. She waited, puzzled.

"Is it him?" Glen called from back in the living room.

"I don't think so."

A feeling of apprehension grew in Joana. She remembered the outside light, reached over and snapped the switch. The bulb over the door lit up, and she saw the face of the big man walking toward her. It was dark and swollen. His eyes were flat, they did not reflect the light.

Joana took a step backward, still holding onto the doork.n.o.b.

"What is it?" she said. "What do you want?"

The man paid no attention. He strode up to the door and smacked the panel with the flat of his hand. The k.n.o.b was wrenched from Joana's grasp as the door flew in and banged against the wall. Joana staggered backwards into the living room.

Glen jumped to his feet and stared at the man in the doorway. "Hey! What's the idea?"

The man paid no attention to him. The flat, dead eyes were fixed on Joana. She backed away, holding her hands up in ineffectual defense.

"Hold it right there," Glen said. He crossed the room to where the big man stood.

The intruder put one hand flat against Glen's chest and shoved him backwards. He seemed to put little effort into the push, but Glen stumbled back across the room, falling over the coffee table. The man ignored him and continued to advance on Joana. He held his hands out in front of him, the thick, stubby fingers reaching for her.

Joana backed away until her shoulder blades b.u.mped against the far wall. "No!" she cried. "Let me alone!"

Glen scrambled to his feet. With an angry shout he rushed at the intruder. He balled his fist and swung with all his strength, hitting the man solidly on the hinge of the jaw. The sound was like a club smacking a side of beef. The man did not seem to know he had been hit. He continued to stalk Joana. Glen moved in front and hit him again. The man's upper lip split to the nose, showing teeth and gums.

He paused in his pursuit of Joana and took hold of Glen, one big hand gripping him under each arm. With no more effort than if he were lifting a child, he picked Glen off the floor and threw him against the wall. Glen's head cracked against a hardwood beam. He sagged to the floor and lay there without moving.

Joana took advantage of the moment to move away from the wall. The intruder stood between her and the front door, blocking her escape that way. She had seen how fast he could move, so it would be useless to try to dodge past him. That left the kitchen door as the only way out. Joana ran through the rooms toward the kitchen. Behind her she heard the thud of the man's footsteps as he came after her.

For a moment she could not get the back door open, and panic rose in her throat. The big man came into the kitchen behind her. Joana dared not look around, but she could hear the low growling sound he made.

She fought with the latch, crying in frustration. Abruptly the door came free, and she was through it and outside.

As she started to run down the narrow paved walk leading from the kitchen door, something blacker than the shadows scooted between her feet. Joana tripped and fell heavily to the gra.s.s. The cat screeched and disappeared around a corner of the house.

The big man came through the door and bore down on her. As he loomed over her Joana could see the gleam of his upper teeth where the lip was split. The outstretched hands reached for her.

Joana scrambled away crabwise across the gra.s.s and managed to regain her feet. The intruder came on. He had her cut off now from the front of the house and the relative safety of the street. She ran in the only direction left open to her-back behind the house.

The gra.s.s back there had been allowed to grow longer than that in front of the house. Clumps of weeds and untrimmed shrubbery clutched at Joana, held her back. Her pursuer, moving swiftly, heedless of the bushes, gained steadily.

Trying to watch back over her shoulder as she ran, Joana hit something that yielded, but would not be pushed out of the way. With a cold clutch of terror she realized she had run into the ivy-grown chain-link fence that separated the little house from the new apartment building behind it. The fence was seven feet tall and had spiky wire ends on the top. Under normal conditions it would have been a difficult climb for Joana. With a maniac charging at her it was unthinkable.

She ran along the fence, stumbling every few steps. She screamed now for help, help from anywhere. The darkness was all she had on her side. The pursuer had to stop repeatedly and look around for her. Apparently he could not see any better in the night than she could.

Lights began to blink on in the windows of the apartment building. Heads appeared in the bright rectangles. Voices called out.

"What's the matter down there?"

"Who is it?"

"Do you need help?"

"What's going on?"

Joana clutched the fence with her fingers hooked through the diamond openings. She stared through the ivy leaves at the apartment building, just a few yards away, but it might as well have been miles.

"Help me!" she cried. "Oh, please help me!"

Hearing her own voice, Joana knew the people from the apartment could never reach her in time. The fence would delay them until it was too late.

Behind her the brush crashed and the man came through, lunging for her.

Again Joana dodged out of his grasp. Her lungs ached, her throat was raw from screaming. Sharp branches tore at her clothing as she flailed through the bushes. A sense of hopelessness welled up in her chest.

As she clawed her way along the fence an exposed root caught her foot like a snare. Her momentum carried her forward, and she fell hard on her stomach. The breath was slammed from her lungs. She writhed on the ground, fighting to draw in air. The brush parted and the big man stepped through. For a moment he stood looking down at her with his empty eyes. The torn lip gave him a hideous sardonic smile. Joana lay before him helpless, shaking. She was unable to draw a breath. The man's hands came toward her throat.

"Eeeeyah!" The piercing shout came from somewhere behind Joana's attacker. He hesitated, his head c.o.c.ked, listening. There was a great crashing in the shrubbery. The man turned.

From where she lay Joana saw Glen charge into view and head for the big man. One of his hands was upraised, the fist clenched. He was holding something. As he came closer Joana saw it was a poker from the fireplace. The intruder turned away from her to face Glen.

"Get away from her," Glen ordered. He came to a stop six feet away from the man. He brandished the poker. "Get away. Get back!"

The big man uttered the low animal growl again and lunged for Glen. His move was sudden and decisive, but Glen was ready. He swung the poker down in a hammer blow. The man made no attempt to fend it off, and the heavy iron shaft cracked into his head. It did not even slow him down.

The sound of the blow made Joana retch. Slowly, painfully, she started to breathe again. She pulled herself over against the fence and crouched there watching the battle. Light from the windows of the apartment building now cast an eerie illumination over the scene.

The big man seemed not to have felt the heavy blow from the poker. He lashed out with a backhand swipe. Glen partially blocked it, but the blow still had enough force to send him sprawling to the ground. He scrambled to his feet as the man turned his attention again toward Joana.

As the intruder came at her once more, Joana pulled herself up painfully with handholds on the fence. She heard Glen shout again, then saw him come up behind the man and swing the poker. It came down in a glancing blow on the man's head, and a flap of scalp tore away. Glen hit him two more times, solid, chopping blows. The man's skull cracked like a melon, and a yellowish jellied substance oozed out and ran down the side of his face. And still he advanced on Joana.

Glen moved quickly around to put himself between her and the attacker. The poker rose and fell, rose and fell. With each blow the sound of impact became mushier.

Joana had a hand pressed against her mouth. She tasted blood and realized she had bitten through the skin on her knuckle. A few feet away, the big man still tried to get at her as Glen hit him over and over again with the poker. The man's head was a shapeless ma.s.s with yellow shards of skull bone sticking out and the ooze of brains splattering everything. Joana wondered at the fact that there was so little blood.

The sound of running feet.

Voices shouting.

People from the apartment were climbing over the fence and running around from the street side toward the grisly tableau. When he heard them coming, Glen stood back. His breath came in labored gasps. His face was a mask of revulsion. The thing that stood swaying before him now wore a shapeless blob for a head. It stood there, turning from side to side, as though it could still see with the ruined eyes.

The first of the arriving people reached the scene and pulled up abruptly at the sight of the man. Others ran up and stopped just as suddenly. The mutilated creature stood turning, turning, surrounded. For eerie seconds no one spoke, no one moved. Then without warning the intruder collapsed on the ground and was still.

Glen stood for a moment looking at the fallen man. Then he dropped the poker into the gra.s.s and rushed to the fence, where Joana still crouched, her fingers laced through the wire. He gently freed her hands and pulled them away from the fence. He knelt beside her and held her close against his chest.

"Are you hurt?" he asked in a whisper.

"No, he didn't get to me. You, darling?"

"A b.u.mp on the head. I'm all right."

And then the tears came.

The people who had run onto the scene moved in and edged cautiously closer to the man lying in the weeds. Others came over to join Glen and Joana.

"What happened?" somebody said.

"I saw it all from my bedroom window," somebody else answered. "That big guy there was like a maniac. He kept going after the girl. The other guy tried to stop him, but he just kept coming. He kept taking those shots to the head like they were nothing."

"Jesus, look at his head."

"There's nothing left on top."

"How did he stand up as long as he did?"

"He was a maniac. Really freaked out."

A man knelt on the gra.s.s where Glen was holding Joana. "Are you two all right?"

"Yeah," Glen managed. "We're okay." He nodded his head toward the crumpled body of the big man. "What about that one?"

"He's finished."

Glen groaned softly.

"Hey, don't worry, you couldn't help it. Enough of us saw what happened. There was nothing else you could have done."

A police siren wailed in the distance and grew steadily louder.

Chapter 15.

Dr. Hovde sat on a metal stool in his examination room facing his patient, Mrs. Helen Ingalls. She perched on the edge of the table, holding her right arm gingerly out in front of her.

"It hurts from about here," she pointed to a spot on her lower triceps, "all the way through the elbow and down to my forearm."

The doctor pa.s.sed his fingers lightly along the woman's arm. There was no swelling, no discoloration. He applied a little pressure.

"Ouch," she said.

Dr. Hovde nodded, satisfied.

"It hurts especially when I serve," she said, "and when I have to reach for a backhand."

"It looks like you have a cla.s.sic case of tennis elbow," Hovde said. "How long have you been playing the game?"

"Twenty years, for Christ's sake."

"Have you made any changes in your game lately?"

Mrs. Ingalls gave an embara.s.sed shrug. "Well, I have been trying to improve my serve. I mean, with the little pitty-pat delivery I've been using, I'm a sitting duck for a winner off the return. Don has been making excuses to get out of being my partner in doubles."

Dr. Hovde shook his head at the folly of a man and wife teaming up to play tennis. He said, "What kind of a change did you make in your serve?"

"The thing is, I've been watching Martina Navratilova, and she really powders the ball. I'm trying to serve more the way she does it, and I've only just started getting results."

"I'll bet," Hovde said. "And one of the results you're getting is the tennis elbow. Remember, Helen, Martina Navratilova is a professional. She is also six inches taller than you, at least forty pounds heavier, and she's left-handed. I suggest you pick somebody else to model your new serve after. In the meantime, go back to pitty-pat."

Helen Ingalls frowned. She was an attractive fortyish woman with tied-back blonde hair and crinkly blue eyes. "Don isn't going to like it."

"Let him play with Martina. If you take a couple of aspirins before you play and wear an elastic brace, it will cut down on the pain, but that's all I can do for you except to tell you to forget the cannonball serve."