Whispers. Part 3

Abruptly, the world was a slow-motion movie. Each second seemed like a minute. She watched him approach as if he were a creature in a nightmare, as if the atmosphere had suddenly become as thick as syrup.

The instant that she spotted the knife, Hilary froze. She stopped backing away from him, even though he continued to approach. A knife will do that. It chokes you up, freezes your heart, brings ah uncontrollable tremor to your guts. Surprisingly few people have the stomach to use a knife against another living thing. More than any other weapon, it makes you aware of the delicacy of flesh, the terrible fragility of human life; in the damage that he wreaks, the attacker can see all too clearly the nature of his own mortality. A gun, a draught of poison, a firebomb, a blunt instrument, a strangler's piece of rope--all can be used relatively cleanly, most of them at a distance. But the man with a knife must be prepared to get dirty, and he must get in close, so close that he can feel the heat escaping from the wounds as he makes them. It takes a special courage, or insanity, to slash at another person and not be repelled by the warm blood spurting over your hand.

Frye was upon her. He placed one large hand on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rubbed and squeezed them roughly through the silky fabric of her dress.

That rude contact snapped her out of the trance into which she'd fallen. She knocked his hand away, twisted out of his grasp, and ran behind the couch.

His laugh was hearty, disconcertingly pleasant, but his hard eyes glinted with a macabre amus.e.m.e.nt. It was a demon joke, the mad humor of h.e.l.l. He wanted her to fight back, for he enjoyed the chase.

"Get out!" she said. "Get out!"

"Don't want to get out," Frye said, smiling, shaking his head. "I want to get in. Oh yeah. That's it. I want to get in you, little lady. I want to rip that dress off your back, get you naked, and get right up in there. All the way up, all the way inside where it's warm and wet and dark and soft."

For a moment, the fear that made her legs rubbery and turned her insides to water was supplanted by more powerful emotions: hate, anger, fury. Hers was not the reasoned anger of a woman toward an arrogant man's usurpation of her dignity and rights; not an intellectual anger based on the social and biological injustices of the situation; it was more fundamental than that. He had entered her private s.p.a.ce uninvited, had pushed his way into her modern cave, and she was possessed by a primitive rage that blurred her vision and made her heart race. She bared her teeth at him, growled in the back of her throat; she was reduced to an almost unconscious animal response as she faced him and looked for a way out of the trap.

A low, narrow, gla.s.s-topped display table stood flush against the back of the sofa. Two eighteen-inch-high pieces of fine porcelain statuary rested upon it. She grabbed one of the statues and hurled it at Frye.

He ducked with a primitive, instinctual quickness of his own. The porcelain struck the stone fireplace and exploded like a bomb. Dozens of chunks and hundreds of chips of it rained down on the hearth and on the surrounding carpet.

"Try again," he said, mocking her.

She picked up the other porcelain, hesitated. She watched him through narrowed eyes, weighed the statue in her hand, then faked a pitch.

He was deceived by the feint. He dipped down and to one side to avoid the missile.

With a small cry of triumph, she threw the statue for real. He was too surprised to duck again, and the porcelain caught him on the side of the head. It was a glancing blow, less devastating than she'd hoped, but he staggered back a step or two. He didn't go down. He wasn't seriously injured. He wasn't even bleeding. But he was hurt, and the pain transformed him. He was no longer in a perversely playful mood. The crooked smile disappeared. His mouth was set in a straight, grim line, lips tightly compressed. His face was red. Fury wound him up as if he were a watch spring; under the strain, the muscles in his ma.s.sive neck popped up, taut, impressive. He crouched slightly, ready to charge.

Hilary expected him to come around the couch, and she intended to circle it, staying away from him, keeping the couch between them until she could reach something else worth throwing. But when he moved at last, he didn't stalk her as she'd antic.i.p.ated. Instead, he rushed straight at her without finesse, as if he were a bull in a blind rage. He bent in front of the couch, gripped it with both hands, tilted it up, and in one smooth movement pushed it over backwards as if it weighed only a few pounds. She jumped out of the way as the big piece of furniture crashed down where she'd been standing. Even as the sofa fell, Frye vaulted over it. He reached for her, and he would have had her if he hadn't stumbled and gone down on one knee.

Her anger gave way to fear again, and she ran. She headed toward the foyer and the front door, but she knew she would not have time to throw off both bolt locks and get out of the house before he got hold of her. He was too d.a.m.ned close, no more than two or three steps away. She darted to the right and dashed up the winding stairs, two at a time.

She was breathing hard, but over her own gasping she heard him coming. His footfalls were thunderous. He was cursing her.

The gun. In the nightstand. If she could get to her bedroom far enough ahead of him to slam and lock the door, that ought to hold him for a few seconds, at least, certainly long enough for her to get the pistol.

At the top of the stairs, as she came into the second-floor hallway, when she was certain she had put another few feet between them, he caught her right shoulder and yanked her back against him. She screamed, but she didn't try to pull away, as he evidently expected her to do. Instead, the instant he grabbed her, she turned on him. She pushed into him before he could get a restraining arm around her, pressed so tight against him that she could feel his erection, and she drove one knee hard into his crotch. He reacted as if he'd been hit by lightning. The red flush of anger went out of his face, and his skin flashed bone-white, all in a fraction of a second. He lost his grip on her and staggered back and slipped on the edge of the first step and windmilled his arms and toppled over, cried out, threw himself to one side, clutched the bannister and was lucky enough to arrest his fall.

Apparently, he hadn't had much experience with women who fought back effectively. She had tricked him twice. He thought he was on the trail of a nice, fluffy, harmless bunny, timid prey that could be subdued easily and used and then broken with a flick of the wrist. But she turned and showed long fangs and claws to him, and she was exhilarated by his shocked expression.

She had hoped he would tumble all the way to the bottom of the staircase, breaking his neck as he went. Even now, she thought the blow to his privates would take him out of action at least a minute or two, long enough for her to get the upper hand. She was shocked when, after only the briefest pause, before she could even turn and run, he shoved away from the bannister and, wincing with pain, struggled up toward her.

"b.i.t.c.h," he said between clenched teeth, barely able to get his breath.

"No," she said. "No. Stay back."

She felt like a character in one of those old horror movies that Hammer Films used to do so well. She was in a battle with a vampire or a zombie, repeatedly astonished and disheartened by the beast's supernatural reserves of strength and endurance.

"b.i.t.c.h."

She ran down the shadow-draped hallway, into the master bedroom. She slammed the door, fumbled for the lock b.u.t.ton in the dark, finally hit the light switch, engaged the lock.

There was a strange and frightening noise in the room. It was a loud hoa.r.s.e sound filled with terror. She looked around wildly for the source of it before she realized that she was listening to her own ragged and uncontrollable sobbing.

She was dangerously close to panic, but she knew she must control herself if she wanted to live.

Suddenly, Frye tried the locked door behind her, then threw his weight against it. The barrier held. But it would not hold much longer, certainly not long enough for her to call the police and wait for help.

Her heart was beating furiously, and she was shaking as if she were standing naked on a vast field of ice; but she was determined not to be incapacitated by fear. She hurried across the big room, around the bed, toward the far nightstand. On the way, she pa.s.sed a full-length wall mirror that seemed to throw back to her the image of a total stranger, an owl-eyed and harried woman with a face as pale as the painted visage of a mime.

Frye kicked the door. It shook violently in the frame but didn't let go.

The .32 automatic was on top of three pairs of folded pajamas in the nightstand drawer. The loaded magazine lay beside it. She picked up the gun and, with jittery hands that nearly failed her, rammed the magazine into the b.u.t.t. She faced the doorway.

Frye kicked the lock again. The hardware was flimsy. It was the kind of interior lock primarily meant to keep children and nosey house guests out of a room. It was useless against an intruder like Bruno Frye. On the third kick, the workings burst from the mounting, and the door clattered open.

Panting, sweating, he looked more than ever like a mad bull as he lumbered out of the dark hall and crossed the threshold. His broad shoulders were hunched, and his hands were fisted at his sides. He wanted to lower his head and charge, smash and destroy everything that stood in his way. Blood l.u.s.t shone in his eyes as clearly as his reflection glowered back at him from the wall mirror beside Hilary. He wanted to smash his way through the china shop and stomp on the proprietor.

Hilary pointed the pistol at him, holding it firmly with both hands.

He kept coming.

"I'll shoot! I will! I swear to G.o.d I will!" she said frantically.

Frye stopped, blinked at her, saw the gun for the first time.

"Out," she said.

He didn't move.

"Get the h.e.l.l out of here!"

Incredibly, he took one more step toward her. It was no longer the smug, calculating, game-playing rapist she had faced downstairs. Something had happened to him; deep inside, relay switches had clicked into place, setting up new patterns in his mind, new wants and needs and hungers that were more disgusting and perverted than any he had revealed thus far. He was no longer even half rational. His demeanor was that of a lunatic. His eyes flashed, not icy as they had been, but watery and hot, fevered. Sweat streamed down his face. His lips worked ceaselessly, even though he was not speaking; they writhed and twisted, pulled back over his teeth, then pushed out in a childish pout, formed a sneer, then a weird little smile, then a fierce scowl, then an expression for which there was no name. He was no longer driven by l.u.s.t or the desire to utterly dominate her. The secret motor that drove him now was darker in design than the one that had powered him just a few minutes ago, and she had the terrible crazy feeling that it would somehow provide him with enough energy to shield him from harm, to let him advance untouched through a hail of bullets.

He took the large knife from the sheath on his right hip and thrust it in front of him.

"Back off," she said desperately.

"b.i.t.c.h."

"I mean it."

He started toward her again.

"For G.o.d's sake," she said, "be serious. That knife's no good against a gun."

He was twelve or fifteen feet from the other side of the bed.

"I'll blow your G.o.dd.a.m.ned head off."

Frye waved the knife at her, drew small rapid circles in the air with the point of the blade, as if it were a talisman and he were chasing off evil spirits that stood between him and Hilary.

And he took another step.

She lined up the forward sight with the center of his abdomen, so that no matter how high the recoil kicked her hands and no matter whether the gun pulled to the left or the right, she would hit something vital. She squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

Please, G.o.d!

He took two steps.

She stared at the pistol, stunned. She had forgotten to throw off the safety catches.

He was maybe eight feet from the other side of the bed. Maybe only six.

Swearing at herself, she thumbed the two tiny levers on the side of the pistol, and a pair of red dots appeared on the black metal. She aimed and pulled the trigger a second time.

Nothing.

Jesus! What? It can't be jammed!

Frye was so completely disa.s.sociated from reality, so thoroughly possessed by his madness, that he did not realize immediately that she was having problems with the weapon. When he finally saw what was happening, he moved in fast, while the advantage was his. He reached the bed, scrambled onto it, stood up, started straight across the mattress like a man walking a bridge of barrels, swaying on the springy surface.

She had forgotten to jack a bullet into the chamber. She did that and retreated two steps until she backed into the wall. She squeezed off a shot without taking aim, fired up at him as he loomed directly over her like a demon leaping out of a crack in h.e.l.l.

The sound of the shot filled the room. It slapped off the walls and reverberated in the windows.

She saw the knife shatter, saw the fragments arc out of Frye's right hand. The sharp steel flew up and back, sparkling for a moment in the shaft of light that escaped through the open top of the bedside lamp.

Frye howled as the knife spun away from him. He fell backwards and rolled off the far side of the bed. But he was up as soon as he went down, cradling his right hand in his left.

Hilary didn't think she had hit him. There wasn't any blood. The bullet must have struck the knife, breaking it and tearing it out of his grasp. The shock would have stung his fingers worse than the crack of a whip.

Frye wailed in pain, screamed in rage. It was a wild sound, a jackal's bark, but it was definitely not the cry of an animal with its tail between its legs. He still intended to come after her.

She fired again, and he went down again. This time he stayed down.

With a little whimper of relief, Hilary sagged wearily against the wall, but she did not take her eyes off the place where he had gone down and where he now lay out of sight beyond the bed.

No sound.

No movement.

She was uneasy about not being able to see him. Head c.o.c.ked, listening intently, she moved cautiously to the foot of the bed, out into the room, then around to the left until she spotted him.

He was belly-down on the chocolate-brown Edward Fields carpet. His right arm was tucked under him. His left arm was flung straight out in front, the hand curled slightly, the still fingers pointing back toward the top of his head. His face was turned away from her. Because the carpet was so dark and plush and eye-dazzlingly textured, she had some difficulty telling from a distance if there was any blood soaked into it. Quite clearly, there was not an enormous sticky pool like the one she had expected to find. If the shot had hit him in the chest, the blood might be trapped under him. The bullet might even have taken him squarely in the forehead. bringing instant death and abrupt cessation of heartbeat; in which case, there would be only a few drops of blood.

She watched him for a minute, two minutes. She could not detect any movement, not even the subtle rise and fall of his breathing.

Dead?

Slowly, timidly, she approached him.

"Mr. Frye?"

She didn't intend to get too close. She wasn't going to endanger herself, but she wanted a better look at him. She kept the gun trained on him, ready to put another round into him if he moved.

"Mr. Frye?"

No response.

Funny that she should keep calling him "Mr. Frye." After what had happened tonight, after what he had tried to do to her, she was still being formal and polite. Maybe because he was dead. In death, the very worst man in town is accorded hushed respect even by those who know that he was a liar and a scoundrel all his life. Because every one of us must die, belittling a dead man is in a way like belittling ourselves. Besides, if you speak badly about the dead, you somehow feel that you are mocking that great and final mystery--and perhaps inviting the G.o.ds to punish you for your effrontery.

Hilary waited and watched as another minute dragged past.

"You know what, Mr. Frye? I think I won't take any chances with you. I think I'll just put another bullet in you right now. Yeah. Fire a round right in the back of your head."

Of course, she wasn't able to do that. She wasn't violent by nature. She had fired the gun on a shooting range once, shortly after she bought it, but she had never killed a living thing larger than the c.o.c.kroaches in that Chicago apartment. She had found the will to shoot at Bruno Frye only because he had been an immediate threat and she had been pumped full of adrenalin. Hysteria and a primitive survival instinct had made her briefly capable of violence. But now that Frye was on the floor, quiet and motionless, no more menacing than a pile of dirty rags, she could not easily bring herself to pull the trigger. She couldn't just stand there and watch as she blew the brains out of a corpse. Even the thought of it turned her stomach. But the threat of doing it was a good test of his condition. If he was faking, the possibility of her shooting pointblank at his skull ought to make him give up his act.

"Right in the head, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she said, and she fired a round into the ceiling.

He didn't flinch.

She sighed and lowered the pistol.

Dead. He was dead.

She had killed a man.

Dreading the coming ordeal with police and reporters, she edged around the outstretched arm and headed for the hall door.

Suddenly, he was not dead any more.

Suddenly, he was very much alive and moving.

He antic.i.p.ated her. He'd known exactly how she was trying to trick him. He'd seen through the ruse, and he'd had nerves of steel. He hadn't even flinched!

Now he used the arm under him to push up and forward, striking at Hilary as if he were a snake, and with his left hand he seized her ankle and brought her down, screaming and flailing, and they rolled over, a tangle of arms and legs, then over again, and his teeth were at her throat, and he was snarling like a dog, and she had the crazy fear that he was going to bite her and tear open her jugular vein and suck out all of her blood, but then she got a hand between them, got her palm under his chin and levered his head away from her neck as they rolled one last time, and then they came up against the wall with jarring impact and stopped, dizzy, gasping, and he was like a great beast on her, so rough, so heavy, crushing her, leering down at her, his hideous cold eyes so frighteningly close and deep and empty, his breath foul with onions and stale beer, and he had one hand under her dress, shredding her pantyhose, trying to get his big blunt fingers under her panties and gain a grip on her s.e.x, not a lover's grip but a fighter's grip, and the thought of the damage he might do to her softest tissues made her gag with horror, and she knew it was even possible to kill a woman that way, to reach up inside and claw and rip and pull, so she tried frantically to scratch his cobalt eyes and blind him, but he swiftly drew his head back, out of range, and then they both abruptly froze, for they realized simultaneously that she had not dropped the pistol when he had pulled her down onto the floor. It was wedged between them, the muzzle pressed firmly into his crotch--and although her finger was on the trigger guard instead of the trigger itself, she was able to slip it back a notch and put it in the proper place even as she became aware of the situation.

His heavy hand was still on her pubis. An obscene thing. A leathery, demonic, disgusting hand. She could feel the heat of it even through the glove he was wearing. He was no longer clawing at her panties. Trembling. His big hand was trembling.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's scared.

His eyes seemed to be fastened to hers by an invisible thread, a strong thread that would not break easily. Neither of them could look away.

"If you make one wrong move," she said weakly, "I'll blow your b.a.l.l.s off."

He blinked.

"Understand?" she asked, unable to put any force in her voice. She was wheezing and breathless with exertion and, mostly, with fear.