Squall (15 page)

“If the baby doesn’t seem to be breathing, firmly flick the bottom of its feet with a fingernail.”

Sanj tried it, with no result.

“If that doesn’t work, blow a few gentle breaths into the baby’s mouth.”

And with an air of calm Mandy believed she would never forget, Sanj inhaled, raised up her newborn baby, sealed his lips over its nose and mouth and gently exhaled, both of them watching the infant’s tiny chest inflate for the first time, then deflate as Sanj broke the seal to exhale and take a fresh breath. He did this four times in a tableau of utter, motionless silence...

Then the baby’s limbs twitched, flexed...and it coughed and began to cry.

All three of them—Sanj, Mandy and Steve—whooped for joy.

“Oh, my God,” Mandy said, sobbing now, her wet eyes meeting Sanj’s, “thank you. Thank you.”

In that moment something passed between the two adults, and for a few precious seconds it seemed to Mandy that this armed intruder who had appeared out of nowhere with cold murder in his eyes had just discovered something about himself, and it had freed him from whatever demons compelled him, and she believed that whatever had brought him here no longer mattered and after a while he would leave the way he had come; and maybe, just maybe, they would even stay in touch...

But the narrator’s voice broke the spell and Sanj glanced at the computer screen, then back at Mandy before setting about the next task he was given. And in that last quick glance Mandy could see no trace of the demon banished, and knew that before this was over he would kill them all, maybe even her babies.

And instead of terror, the knowledge induced an unexpected, watchful calm.

Using the shoelaces, Sanj tied off the umbilical cord in two places then cut between them with the scissors, a few droplets of cord blood spattering the apron, the stains darker than the fake blood that was already there. A single drop caught him on the chin, and as he raised the hem of the apron to wipe it away he looked directly at Mandy and said, “Whatever happens here tonight, I will not hurt your children.”

And in spite of the insanity of it all, Mandy gave him a grateful nod.

“Step eight. Encourage the new mom to breast feed immediately.”

Sanj bundled the newborn in a clean towel and handed him to Mandy, who put him to her breast.

“This will help her body expel the placenta and stop her bleeding.”

Sanj said, “Placenta?”

“Let the placenta emerge on its own. Don’t try to pull it out.”

Sitting again, Sanj looked at the cut end of the umbilical cord with the shoelace tied around it, following its course under the sheet into Mandy’s vagina.

“Save it for the doctor, who will want to examine it later.”

As Sanj lifted the sheet for a better view, Mandy gave one last exhausted push. There was a nasty wet glurping sound as she expelled the afterbirth, right under Sanj’s nose. She could feel it sliding out of her like some bloated, benthic mutation.

With a rush of grim satisfaction, Many watched Sanj’s eyes widen in horror.

––––––––

Tom brought the Mercedes to a stop at the foot of the two hundred meter access road that lead from the highway into Stokes Aviation. Killing the engine, he said to Dale, “We walk from here.”

Leaving the heroin and the cash in the back seat, the men exited the vehicle into a calm, moonless night under a static gray sky, the storm finally spent. Facing Dale, Tom aimed an extended arm up the road, inviting him to take the lead. Whatever he believed he’d learned about Dale Knight today, he still wasn’t sure he trusted the man walking behind him in the dark with a loaded gun in his possession.

Dutifully, Dale began tramping up the unplowed road toward the house, and Tom had the at once pedestrian and utterly ludicrous thought that he would have to give his plow guy shit for not having their road cleared yet. Ludicrous because after tonight, they might all be dead.

The thought sobered Tom and he reached into his pocket for the weapon Dale had given him, liking its heft, its cold assurance in his bare hand. He pulled back the slide to chamber a round. In front of him, without breaking stride, Dale said, “Be careful with that thing. If I get shot tonight, I don’t want it to be by you.”

Tom said, “Are you still up for this?” and Dale didn’t answer.

They came around a bend in the road and Tom put a hand on Dale’s shoulder, stopping him. Light from the compound was visible now through a dense stand of jack pines and Tom didn’t want them getting spotted before they even reached the grounds.

The men huddled there briefly and Tom said, “I asked you if you were still up for this,” and Dale said, “Fuck, no...but yes, I’m still up for this, all right?”

Tom said all right, then angled off the road into the knee-deep snow of the jack pine stand, taking the lead now, deciding to trust the terrified heroin addict with the gun in his hand who tramped into the woods behind him. When it came right down to it, what choice did he have?

They came out of the trees about twenty feet from the huge, stainless steel Quonset hut that served as a garage, repair shop and hangar, a windowless monstrosity that Mandy hated and joked could probably be seen from outer space.

“Okay,” Tom said, “This is it. Remember the drill?”

Breathing hard beside him, Dale said, “I got it, Tom. Let’s just get it done, okay?”

“All right. See you on the other side.”

The men moved off in opposite directions, Dale heading past the Quonset hut to the brightly lit front of the homestead, Tom angling around back. Years ago he’d hidden a key to the rear door of the hut above its metal frame, and was gratified now to find it still there, snug in it’s little magnetic box. He used it to open the seldom-used door, which gave a rusty bark as he drew it open against the accumulated snow, the harsh sound fading quickly to silence in the drooping boughs of the surrounding pines.

He paused there a moment, breathing puffs of frost into the still night air, listening, fearful the sound had alerted Sanj and exposed them before they even got started...but there was nothing: no movement, no sound.

Moving more carefully now, Tom used the side of his boot to clear away the banked snow, then eased the door open just wide enough to squeeze through.

Inside, he used a penlight to find a spare set of keys in a coffee can on his workbench, then tucked the light between his teeth, removed a single key from the ring with shivering fingers and tucked the lot of them into his pocket.

Finally, he lifted an extension ladder from its hooks and carried it out through back door.

* * *

As it had always been, Dale’s first instinct was to bolt. Fuck this nonsense. Get back to the Mercedes—
Shit, Tom has the keys
—grab the stuff and beat a trail for parts unknown. He didn’t owe these people anything—it was Tom who’d crashed the party, not him—and he sure as fuck didn’t want to die out here tonight. That fucking Sanj was a murdering maniac and Dale had
seen
the fury in those black eyes after he shot the man’s brother, a cold, sharklike death stare that had frightened him even more than the switchblade Sanj had been about to flay him with. Truth be told, he’d come close to shitting himself right there in the tub.

He really did know a guy in Montreal who’d pay top dollar for the dope—minus the half-key he’d hold onto for personal use—and that, plus the quarter mill in cash he already had, would be more than enough to comfortably carry him for the next five years. Someplace warm and
very
far away...

In spite of himself, Dale crept up to the first window he saw and peeked inside at what looked like a living room. Dimly lit in there. Abandoned.

But fuck, if he was being honest with himself, he really
did
owe this guy. If Tom hadn’t coldcocked Sanj he’d be dead right now, stabbed and fileted, bled out in his uncle’s bathtub. Eviscerated, probably. The thought of it raised a cold sweat across his scalp and for a moment, picturing it, Dale thought he might puke.

Breathing in shallow gasps, he hunched there in the shadow of the porch, hands on his knees until the feeling passed.

God
damn
it.

He’d actually taken a dozen quick steps toward the roadway when he turned, raised the gun to a ready position and started back toward the porch steps.

He thought,
Fuck this. Oh, sweet Lord Jesus, fuck this.

Then he crept up the stairs to the patterned glass side-light and peered inside.

* * *

Tom was on the roof at the back of the house now, staring into the master bedroom through the big dormer window, barely able to make anything out in the unlit enclosure. Once his eyes adjusted, he could see that the bed was still made and Mandy’s work clothes were draped across the foot rail, which probably meant she was wearing a nightie and, hopefully, a housecoat. The thought of that animal’s eyes on her made his skin crawl. If he had so much as
touched
her...

But he knew this line of thinking was pointless, and would only make him impulsive and vulnerable once he was face to face with the guy, and he did his best to suppress it.

He started around the east-facing side of the roof, heading for Steve’s room at the front of the house. Partway there he lost his footing on the steep slope and almost went over the edge, just managing to stop himself by digging the edges of his boots into the frozen shingles.

Panting, he thought,
Shit, they
must
have heard that.

Then Dale’s voice from below, a loud whisper: “You okay up there?”

Tom peered over the edge and saw Dale staring up at him, gun aimed at the ground. Tom said, “I figured soon as I took my eyes off you, you’d make a run for it.”

“Almost did,” Dale said. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And keep it down, will you?”

“Be with you is a sec. Just going to check my son’s room. See anything yet?”

“Not a thing.”

“Okay, wait right there.”

Taking his time now, Tom crept to the front of the house and checked Steve’s room, the little guy’s green nightlight casting a creepy pall over everything in there. The covers on his bed were folded down, the bottom sheet wrinkled from the weight of his body, but Steve was nowhere in sight.

Tom felt his insides turn to mud. He crept back to the ladder and started down, Dale steadying his descent from the ground.

Stepping off into the snow, Tom said, “Steve’s not in his bed. Why would he bring a five year old child into this?”

“Insurance,” Dale said.

“Well, fuck him. Did you check the office yet?” Dale shook his head and Tom said, “Okay, follow me.”

He didn’t want to risk exposure by using the big picture window, so he lead Dale to the west-facing side of the building, coming full circle to the Quonset hut, the flank of which formed an eight-foot wide alleyway with the main structure. Near the front of the building they came to a small window in the side wall of the office, but the blind had been drawn. Mandy never drew those blinds, so it must have been Sanj.

Tom moved to the picture window next to find that the blind had been drawn on it, too. He returned to the side window and noticed a narrow space at the top where the blind was suspended from its base. He got Dale to give him a boost.

It took him a moment to orient himself, but then he saw the foot of the open sofa bed and the floor beside it. There was a blood stained sheet balled up on the floor, and the unmoving outline of two pairs of feet under a blanket on the bed, one pair adult, the other a child’s.

“Oh, no...”

* * *

Setting Tom down, Dale said, “What is it?” but Tom had tears in his eyes now and appeared catatonic, swaying in a near faint.

Dale spotted a wooden skid leaning against the Quonset hut and pried it out of the snow, propped it against the office wall and scaled it to have a look for himself.

Jesus.
It did not look good.

He heard Tom say, “That motherfucker,” and said, “We don’t know that yet, Tom,” and hopped back to the ground. He said, “Did you see him?”

“No.”

“Me neither. So let’s just stick to the plan.”

Tom nodded and handed him a key. “This is for the outside basement door; you passed it on the other side of the house.”

Dale remembered.

Tom said, “You go down six steps, straight across the basement and up another twelve. That’ll put you right across from the office door. He’s probably watching it, so be careful. I’ll be coming in through the other side of the house. If we time it right, we’ll end up flanking the office door. That way, at best, he’ll only be able to get the drop on one of us, no matter how fucking clever he is.”

The urge to flee welled up in Dale again, stronger this time, but Tom said, “Is your head clear?” and Dale said, “Crystal.” And it was.

“All right,” Tom said, and offered his hand to be shaken. Dale shook it, surprised by its gentle strength, its warmth out here in the snow.

Still holding Dale’s hand, Tom said, “Thanks, Dale. And no matter what happens next, you’re already twice the man your brother ever was.”

Then he let go and started away and Dale stood there for a moment in the chill winter air, an absurd sting of tears in his eyes, flight the furthest thing from his mind now.

He wiped his eyes dry and got moving.

* * *

When Tom stepped into the hallway that gave onto the closed office door, a part of him still half-expected Dale to have fled in the eleventh hour; but the man was already there, his back to the wall next to the office door, gun raised in a two-handed grip like a character in an action film, his expression tense, not with fear, Tom judged, but with a fierce determination.

Tom took a similar stance on the opposite side of the door and, with a confirming nod, grasped the knob and swung the door open, moving silently into the room and dropping to one knee, sweeping the room for targets. Dale stepped in behind him and remained standing, aiming over Tom’s head.

No sign of Sanj.

From his current vantage a dozen feet from the sofa bed, Tom could see only its bottom third, a wider view obstructed by the big storage room he’d built the previous summer. There was still no movement on the bed, and, glancing again at that bloody sheet, Tom braced himself for the worst.