End of Days (11 page)

“How did he find you?” I asked.

“I went back to the rave,” Charlie said. “I didn't know where else to go. I was hoping my friends would still be there so I could find a place to crash. Figure out what to do. But Entwistle was there waiting.”

“How did he know to go there?”

“Best way to find someone,” Mr. Entwistle said, “go to a place they've already been. We are creatures of habit.”

I looked at Charlie and he shrugged. I guess his theories about hiding needed some work.

“I still don't get it,” I said to Mr. Entwistle. “How did you know to go there?”

The old vampire glanced back over his shoulder. “To the rave? I was there earlier, following another vampire. You can imagine my surprise when you two young bloods ran out of the place.”

“He was the one outside,” Charlie added. “The one who dropped from the roof.”

“Then who was the other vampire?” I asked.

Mr. Entwistle pressed his eyes to the viewer in front of him. “The one inside. He was a Coven agent.”

I looked at Charlie and swallowed. His pupils were expanding to a more frantic size. “They sent him to kill us,” he said. “When we took off, he went straight to your house to wait. Entwistle got there before us, and the two of them started fighting.”

“Is that why there was so much blood?” I asked.

The old vampire, grunted. “Not exactly. I was hoping to talk some sense into him. I guess I was bleeding a little. Then Mr. Hyde showed up and tore him to pieces. I've never seen anything like it.”

“Who's Mr. Hyde?” I asked.

“That thing from the zoo,” Charlie answered.

“What was it? It moved so fast, we could hardly see it.”

Mr. Entwistle answered. “Mr. Hyde? I'm not sure, but I have my suspicions.”

“Is it a vampire?”

“I doubt it.”

“How do you know his name?”

“I don't, but we need to call him something. Thank God he hates the water. I damn near bled to death getting away. Even after a few pints of the good stuff and a day of sleep, I'm still not quite myself.”

Well, Mr. Entwistle looked exactly the same as he had last year. A little messier perhaps. But not a day older.

“Where have you been all this time?” I asked. “I don't understand.”

“Vampires my age are hard to kill, boy. Fire and sunlight might be the only sure ways. When that bomb of your uncle's went off, it buried me in rubble. I dug in deep. It insulated me from the worst of the heat. But I had to wait a few weeks to surface. My body was a mess. Burnt. Broken. It took weeks to heal. . . . The trouble was over by then, so I went home.”

“Where's that?” Charlie asked.

“Merry old England. I needed information. But as soon as things started to fall apart here, I came back. That's John Entwistle in a nutshell—the best foul-weather friend you're likely to find.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” I said.

“What? That I was alive. I'm telling you now. You're doing fine, aren't ya?”

The correct answer was no. I'd been gassed, shot twice, thrown through two sets of doors, and run full bore into a cement wall. My eyes stung from the tear gas, and the rumbling of the armored car had my body shaking like a pebble in a tin can. Everything but my
eyebrows was sore. Still, I didn't want to complain. He'd just broken me out of jail.

“Do you have any blood?” I asked.

“No,” Mr. Entwistle said. “I used the last of my stash after getting trashed by the fleabag in Round-Two-at-the-Zoo. I lost the first round near your house on Hunter. So my store is all tapped out. Except what's flowing in my veins, but that would probably kill you.”

“Why? I've never understood that.”

“I don't know exactly. I imagine it's because the pathogen behaves differently in different people. It changes us. And some changes just aren't compatible.”

It made sense. Kind of. He eased up on one lever. I felt myself shift sideways as the car turned a corner.

“What was with the wolves?” Charlie asked.

“Reinforcements,” Mr. Entwistle said. “I needed the help. But that creature is something else. Stronger than anything I've ever seen, and I've been to Venice Beach.” He glanced back at me. “You sure you're all right? You look a little woozy.”

He was starting to slide out of focus, but I didn't say anything. I had too many questions. “How did you know I was in jail?”

“I have a few contacts in the department. And I monitor the police radios.”

“What was going on with that boy they brought in?” I asked.

Mr. Entwistle sighed. “Poor Shawn. I told him he could borrow my car, then called the cops and reported it stolen. Not very neighborly of me. But they wouldn't let you have any visitors. Some new terrorist legislation. So I needed to get someone else inside so I could visit them and scope things out.”

That didn't seem fair to Shawn, and I said so.

“Oh, it won't do any permanent harm,” Mr. Entwistle said. “I'll have the charges dropped, but it probably won't be necessary. The cops will put two and two together. They're not stupid. But don't lose any sleep over this. We've got bigger problems.”

“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.

“Little Lake.”

That seemed like an odd destination. There was nothing there but water. “Why?” I asked.

“This is an aquatic car. They won't be able to follow us.”

“Are you joking?”

“You'll know when I'm joking. It will be funny. Didn't you notice the tires on this thing?”

I had. They looked big enough for a tractor. “Where did you get it?”

“The shell is military, special order. The tires are designed for a bulldozer. The electronics I did myself. The engine, too. One of the perks of being around since the preindustrial era. I've been able to follow the evolution of the engine from the steamship to the nuclear sub. Same for computers. It's what you have to do. Keep up with the times. An old dog who can't learn new tricks gets mired in the past. Then you get buried with it.”

It was an odd message to hear from a guy who looked as if he'd walked straight off the set of
Oliver Twist
—with a detour through a mudslide. But I had no doubt it was true. If you were stuck in the past, and the past disappeared, where did it leave you? Floundering in an unknown world. That wasn't Mr. Entwistle. I'd once been in his house. For every old book on his shelf, he had a dozen magazines scattered on the floor. Computers, cars, science, business. Like Ophelia, he was interested in everything. It must have been how they stayed connected to the present.

The car lurched left, then right. We hit something hard and it tossed me back against the wall. Fortunately, a padded headrest was mounted right where it was needed.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Roadblock.”

“Are we through?”

“Easily.”

The car dropped and I heard a splash. The rumble of the wheels
stopped. So did the jostling. We were bobbing, instead. “We're on the water now,” Mr. Entwistle told me.

. . . on the water now.
That sounded as comforting as “we're going back to jail.” It wasn't that I hated the water. I just really, really, really didn't like it. Really. I unbuckled myself and walked to the front for a better view. When I pressed my eyes over the lenses, everything looked green. I could see the far shoreline, but that was it.

“Is there a way to see out the back, or to the side?” I wanted to know what kind of mess we'd left behind, and what the near bank looked like, the one that was closest to the police station.

“There are small windows on each side. You can take the helm in a second and I'll check things out.” He started unfastening the harness that held him in place.

I put my eyes back to the lenses, then I started to get dizzy. The bleeding in my shoulder and thigh had stopped, but I was still sore. I was going to need blood. And a week of sleep. Charlie took hold of my arm. I hadn't even noticed him get up and step over.

“You look like you're about to pass out.” He stared at me for a few seconds, then helped me into my seat.

The car was moving ahead by itself. Behind us, Mr. Entwistle removed something from his coat—the bottle of whiskey he'd brought into the police station.

“Saints preserve us!” he said, raising it to his lips. When he was finished, he walked over to the side of the cockpit and lifted a thin screen. It covered an elliptical porthole set above the bench. “Dammit,” he snapped. He walked to the other side, uncovered the window opposite, continued to curse, then did the same at the back.

“What is it?” I put my hands on my knees and tried to push myself to my feet, but I wasn't feeling steady, so I stayed, unbelted, in the seat.

“The shore to either side is being monitored. Cruisers are everywhere. I'd hope to float down the river and exit farther along, where they couldn't be waiting for us, but there's a boat on the water. They
can follow our every move. How could they have managed that so quickly?”

“It's the summer,” Charlie said. “They always have a boat out this time of year. And usually a few Jet Skis.”

“We can't outrun them in this. It's designed for power. Not speed.” Mr. Entwistle took another sip of whiskey. “That Ford Mustang is looking pretty good right now.”

“We wouldn't have made it out of the garage,” I said. “And that roadblock would have stopped us cold.”

“Quite right.”

“Should we abandon ship?” Charlie asked.

Mr. Entwistle looked horrified. “There are twenty-four hundred horses under this hood. I'm not abandoning this treasure. That's blasphemy.”

I stood up and looked through the window that faced the downtown. Under the streetlights a row of police cars were lined up bumper to bumper, their red and blue lights flashing across the neighboring buildings. We were crawling past.

Charlie edged in beside me to take a look. “We don't have a chance. We'd be better off getting out to swim. You can paddle a canoe faster than this thing.”

“Yeah, but a canoe doesn't cost you all your Microsoft stock. Do you know how many beer bottles I'm going to have to collect before I can make another one of these?”

“So what do we do?” I asked. “Didn't you plan for this? I thought you could see the future.”

Mr. Entwistle took off his hat and held it over his heart. “Of course I had a plan. My plan was to sink. I never thought these tires would keep us afloat.”

“Sink?”

“Yeah. I figured we sink and swim out the top.” He looked at the hatch, above. “It's why I brought the air tanks.” He pointed toward the first-aid kit. I could see several small canisters strapped to the
wall beside it. “The top is the only way out. You may be right. It might be time to get wet. We can leave the controls in place. That will keep the tires moving. We've got to take our chances in the water.”

I was about as comfortable in the water as I was in the sun. “I can't swim.”

“I know,” he said. “I watched you nearly drown the last time we were in the river, remember?”

I did. It was part of our escape from the Nicholls Ward last year. It had nearly been the death of me.

“Don't worry,” he said. “You can just walk on the bottom.”

“Really?”

“Well, there's no harm in trying. . . . Here.” He handed me his whiskey bottle. Then he started fiddling with the dash.

The engine's rumble turned into a quiet purr. Then something bumped into us. I heard a muffled sound, like someone shouting through a loudspeaker.

“Turn off your engine and come out slowly with your hands up. I repeat . . .”

“Just ignore them,” Mr. Entwistle said.

“What can they do?” I asked.

He pursed his lips and thought. Then he reached out, yanked the bottle from my hand, took a deep haul, then wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “They don't have to do anything. We've got nowhere to go and no way to get there. We're going to run out of gas shortly. This thing drinks more than I do.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “So we're floundering in this sea cow waiting to get shot.”

“Sea cow! Sea cow?” Mr. Entwistle threw up his hands. “Show some respect. This thing can bounce a plutonium-tipped warhead. We can't get shot in here.”

“But we can't stay, either.”

“Good point.” He walked over to the hatch and undid it, then pushed it open. I moved closer and peered up through the open
hole. There was nothing to see but stars and clouds. Then the beam of a searchlight bounced off the far side. Enough light leaked in that I had to squint.

“I don't suppose there's any point in waiting.” He sounded painfully glum. “I don't normally get attached to things.” He looked around the cockpit. “Well, I guess I owe them.”

“Owe who?” Charlie asked.

“The Peterborough police. I trashed a police cycle last year, and that Ford Mustang, and a few more in that roadblock. And you demoed at least three cars tonight in that underground garage, Charlie.” Mr. Entwistle took a pull from his bottle. “I guess this makes us even.” Then he grunted in disgust. “I really wanted to take this thing to the Warsaw Fair.”

It seemed an odd time to get nostalgic. The police were still shouting instructions through a loudspeaker and I could feel the front of their boat bumping into the car. Mr. Entwistle reached up to the roof. I was hoping he'd pull out the controls for a laser cannon, or a giant slingshot, but instead he pulled down a short ladder that was hinged near the opening. It swung into place with a click. He gave it a shake to test it, then grabbed the waist of my pants with one hand and cupped the other one around his mouth.

“Here's your man!” he shouted to the police. An instant later, he raised me off the ground and flung me up through the hatch.