Joe (27 page)

Chapter
Forty-Nine

Eric

At
nine fifteen a.m., Eric was placing the wrapped present he had gotten for his
daughter in the back seat of his car. He was still nervous about this
afternoon, and the nerves had made paranoid thoughts race through his head all
morning.

His daughter was not going to recognize
him, or even know who he was. Hell, she wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a
lineup, which was sort of sardonic when he thought about it. He wondered about
what Jenny had told his little girl. He worried that Jenny may have made his
daughter believe that this new man Jenny had married was her real father. He
worried his daughter wouldn’t want to talk to him. He worried that she would
not accept the gift he had gotten her.

He worried about all the wrong things.

As he sat down in his first class at
nine-forty a.m., still five minutes before the class was to begin, Eric
continued on worrying about all the wrong things.

Chapter
Fifty

Merion

At
nine-forty-five a.m., Merion was walking into her first class of the day. She
smiled and greeted her students, putting on her Professor-face, hoping that today
would go by quickly. Monday was her least favorite day of the week.

As she went through the motions of her
lesson, she thought to herself that at some point she had become a really good teacher,
and at some point later, she had lost her way. Merion no longer enjoyed seeing
understanding light up the faces of her students. She no longer enjoyed
imparting her wisdom to the younger generation. Come to think of it, she no
longer enjoyed most of things her life had to offer.

Well
, she thought,
it’s almost over. I’m almost free.

She had no idea just how right she was.

Chapter
Fifty-One

Michael

While
Merion was wallowing through her nine forty-five class, and while the
raven-haired girl was waiting so patiently under the same tree which the two of
them had shared just the previous day, Michael was just crawling out of bed.

It was nice to sleep in on a Monday, and
since he had promised Joe he would skip his classes today, he did just that.
Honestly though, his sleep had been fitful. He’d had a dream last night that
seemed to keep recurring despite the fact that he had woken from it several
times gasping and covered in sweat. Michael had never had the same dream five
times in one night. He had finally gotten some decent sleep after the fifth
time he had awaken, around six in the morning, and part of him just wanted to
lay in bed for the rest of the day. By ten o’ clock, however, he pulled himself
out of bed and hopped in the shower.

He thought about his dream while he was
in the shower, but amazingly, the only thing he could recall about it was the
raven. The raven had chased him from dream to dream, and he could still see its
grinning face when he closed his eyes. It gave him a sense of foreboding that
he was only able to vanquish in the warm light of day.

At ten-thirty a.m. he was dressed and
heading to the deli around the corner to pick up some fresh meat and bread. By
eleven-thirty he had his picnic basket from the day before filled with new sandwiches
and chips and sodas, and was in his car heading down Highway 71 toward UMMS.

No classes, she had said. She hadn’t
said anything about staying away from the school. Perhaps she should have been
more specific, because Michael had about a million questions he wanted her to
answer, and maybe she wouldn’t object to a nice lunch in the Quad again. Maybe
she wouldn’t object to some subtle questions, either. Michael would back off if
he felt like he was scaring her away, but he had to at least
try.
Most
students spent the lunch hour out in the Quad on a nice day like this, and he
just bet he would find her there.

He couldn’t wait.

***

Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo,
Doc? What makes him do the things he does?”

Doc Holliday: A man like Ringo has got a
great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal
enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.

Wyatt Earp: What does he need?

Doc Holliday: Revenge.

Wyatt Earp: For what?

Doc Holliday: Bein’ born.

Excerpt from Tombstone, 1993

Chapter
Fifty-Two

The
Decider

He’d
been unable to help himself from walking by the locations where he had placed
his bombs. The walkie-talkie, which would hopefully detonate them when he
pushed down the “talk” button, was in the right side pocket of his black cargo
pants. He would wait until the very last moment, just when the pigs were
bearing down on him, to press it, and he would watch with his last breaths as
the four buildings surrounding the Quad gave him a standing ovation in smoke
and fire and booms and screams. He checked the watch on his wrist. The time
read eleven fifty-two.

He entered the Quad from the same place
where he had entered yesterday, underneath the stone archway next to Blue, his
stride confident and his hands stuffed in the pockets of the black jacket he
wore, gripped around the handles of the .45 and the 9mm. A few people were
already filing out of the four buildings around him, and he got the almost
undeniable urge to remove his pistols from his pockets and start the fun early.
But he was nothing if not patient. He had waited this long, and he could wait
eight more minutes so the Quad could fill up completely. The sheep, beginning
to multiply in front of him, made his chest grow light with excitement and
anticipation. It was a
great
feeling, a feeling that gave him the
sensation of walking on air, a feeling that…

Chapter
Fifty-Three

Joe

…was
unmistakable and familiar and horrible, a feeling that I associated with fires
and screams and little Emily being led out by the Stranger at the daycare so
long ago. It was coming. The Shadowman was coming. I could feel it in my gut
and my bones. In my head, my better judgment was screaming at me to
Run!
Run! Run! There’s a train coming, you fool, and you’re standing right in the
middle of the tracks! Get the hell out of here. Get the hell out of here NOW!

And save myself, but I could not. I
could not run away and leave the wolf to devour all the sheep. 

I stood from where I was seated underneath
the old oak tree on its little hill, my eyes darting all around me, my legs
surprisingly steady beneath me. As I did this, my right hand went to my green
jacket pocket, and my fingers found the cold steel that waited there. My
pointer finger flicked off the safety on the gun. I gripped it in my sweaty
hand.

Now move, soldier! That’s an order!

As I made my way over to the jaguar
statue that sat on its tall concrete platform, I looked over toward Blue,
toward the stone archway through which my suspected Shadowman had eluded me the
day before, but I could spot no one who looked suspicious. I reached the jaguar
and hunkered down on my haunches. It was hard to breathe. My heart was
galloping wildly and the heat of the sun seemed to be baking me from above.
That feeling in my gut grew stronger and stronger…

Chapter
Fifty-Four

The
Decider

…and
stronger, until he was just about shaking with need. Around him, students were
spilling out of the buildings in clumps and clusters, taking up spots on
benches and smoking cigarettes and pulling out lunches and chatting pleasantly
away with one another. Oh, how he hated all of them. Ahead he could see the
statue of that stupid fucking jaguar, and no raven perched on its head.
Ha!
That fucking bird had grinned and acted mighty big in his dream, and now the
yellow-belly sonofabitch hadn’t even bothered to show up.

Meet me at high noon, or get the fuck
outta town,
the Decider
thought, and this made a grin stretch across his own face.
I guess that bird
flew the fuck outta town! Ha! I guess it knew what was good for it.

And that was just dandy, because by the
looks of it, everyone else had shown up, just as he had known they would. The
noise in the Quad was growing louder and louder as more and more people piled
into the box created by the stone buildings. All of them, with their fucking
routine and boring and worthless lives, had decided to…

Chapter
Fifty-Five

Merion

…take
her lunch outside this afternoon. It was such a lovely day, and she took every
chance she could get to escape the stone walls of the school buildings. She
decided to sit on a bench that stood under the shade of a large maple tree, and
removed a tuna sandwich from her lunch bag. The Quad was filling up with
students who had time in between classes to come out and enjoy the day as well.
Merion watched them all for moment, thinking about how she had been so young
once, so full of hopes and dreams. She envied their ignorance, and their belief
that youth would last forever. So much time, they had. They had no idea how
quickly that time would go by. They had no idea how quickly they would find
themselves stuck in some boring job they hated, with beer-bellies and bald
spots and wrinkles adorning their faces. They had no idea how…

Chapter
Fifty-Six

Joe

…fast
everything was about to happen. Later, I would realize that the whole thing had
only lasted about thirty seconds, and I would come to learn that time is truly
just a relative thing. So much happened in that thirty seconds it may as well
have been an entire lifetime. I suppose that in those rare moments where you
can remember every single agonizing detail, time feels no need to follow rules.

I remained in my crouched position, but
I peeked over the stone platform on which the jaguar stood. My right hand was
shoved deep in my pocket, wrapped around the iron concealed there. I scanned
the walkway that led up to Blue, and my heart stopped as I saw a man in all
black heading my way. There was nothing special about him, and even though
there were now plenty of students lining the walkway and impairing my vision, I
knew in my gut this was
him
. The Shadowman…

Chapter
Fifty-Seven

The
Decider

…was
almost there. Just a few more…

Chapter
Fifty-Eight

Claire

…hours
until all of this was over. All of her pain and her heartache would finally be
put to rest. Even the sun, shining warmly and pleasantly on her skin could not
offer any light into her mind. Claire fished the bottle of pills from her
backpack and stared down at them, thinking this would be an okay place to do
the deed. All of these people around her, and no one would pay any attention if
she were to just start popping the pills one by one right now.

Claire passed the jaguar statue in the
center of the Quad and spotted an open bench that sat underneath a large oak
tree. It was far enough back from the walkway that she would go unnoticed by
everyone who passed. The tree provided an inviting shade that would keep the
sun from glaring into her face as it was doing now. It was kind of perfect,
actually.

There she sat, staring down at the pill
bottle in her hand, thinking about…

Chapter
Fifty-Nine

John

…Jodie,
of course, when he spotted the raven-haired girl crouched beside the statue of
the jaguar in the Quad. Man, he’d thought
he
was strange, but this girl
may just have him beat. He decided he had to find out what she was doing there,
and changed directions, heading toward where Joe was crouched. A few jokes
popped into his head and he thought about which one would be the most clever.
Joe was good at taking jokes. It was part of the reason he liked her. She could
laugh at herself. John admired that in a girl.

But as he grew closer, he saw that no
joke would be appropriate. There was a look on Joe’s face that was so serious and
concentrated he almost stopped in his tracks. Behind him, something slammed
into the backs of his knees…

Chapter
Sixty

Mina

…knocking
the poor guy to the ground. “Davis,” Mina said. “Watch where you’re going!” She
came over and helped John to his feet. “I’m sorry about that,” she told him.
“He never watches where he’s going.”

John waved a hand at the woman—she was
much too pretty to get mad at—and smiled down at the boy who had bumped into
him. “That’s okay. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have just stopped in the middle
like that,” he said.

Mina smiled at him gratefully, and he
headed on his way. She grabbed Davis by the shoulders and pulled him close to
her. “I hope you don’t mind having lunch out here,” she said. “Russell said he
would meet us here, but I don’t see him yet. Come on, let’s wait…