Superstition (60 page)

Once, a long time ago, so long ago she could hardly remember, she’d been pretty. . . .

“Where’s the fucking money?”

Wolfman’s sudden roar made Sarah jump and brought her attention crashing back down to the scene in front of her. As her gaze refocused, Wolfman surged over the counter and grabbed the cashier, who was clutching a single fifty in her hand, by the hair. The fifty fluttered to the floor near Sarah’s feet. The money bag dropped onto the counter with a
plop.
The cashier gave a little high-pitched squeal that was immediately silenced as Wolfman slammed her head down hard against the top of the cash register with a metallic
clang
.

Sarah’s stomach twisted. Her mouth went dry. Her eyes, huge with pity and fright, stayed riveted on the cashier.

“You gonna tell me? Huh? Huh?”

As Skeleton Boy scooped up the fallen fifty and stuffed it in his pocket, Wolfman slammed the woman’s forehead into the cash register twice more in quick succession.

“Huh? Huh?”
Clang. Clang.

Inside, Sarah screamed. Outwardly, she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in impotent rage but made no other move. She had to do
something
—but there was nothing she could do except watch in silent horror. Anything else, she knew, would simply refocus the violence on herself.

At the thought, she went clammy with fear.

The cashier’s shrill cries deteriorated into sobbing moans as Wolfman ground her forehead against the cash register’s unforgiving metal with deliberate brutality. An answering sound, a barely audible whimper, came from the little girl hidden under the table. Sarah’s eyes widened as it registered. She caught her breath, but dared not look around.

She was sweating bullets now. Her heart thudded.

Stay quiet.
She sent the fierce mind-message to the child. Then, in case the kid wasn’t receiving, she appealed once again to a higher power:
Please God, keep her quiet. Don’t let them find her.

The thought that they might sent icy terror shooting through Sarah’s veins. However ambivalent she might feel about the value of her own life, she found that she could not bear the idea of a child, a little girl, being hurt. And that she and the cashier were both going to end up hurt, or worse, Sarah now had little doubt. With a sinking feeling, she accepted the reality that the situation was rapidly deteriorating. From experience, she knew that violence, once initiated, tended to escalate.

Even as the realization caused little curls of panic to twist through her stomach, Wolfman yanked the cashier’s head all the way up. The woman sobbed and gasped noisily, her eyes wide, her mouth open. Behind Sarah, Skeleton Boy jingled louder than ever. The air conditioner blew. The refrigerator units hummed. There were so many different sounds that apparently Sarah was the only one who heard the child give a little cry—or at least the only one who recognized the sound for what it was.

Don’t come out,
she willed the kid urgently. She could feel trickles of sweat rolling down between her shoulder blades. Her heart pounded like a long-distance runner’s. Her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt like leather.

“Where’s the fucking money?”
Wolfman roared again, letting go of the cashier’s hair at last.

Dazed and crying, the woman slumped against the counter without answering, supporting herself on her elbows. Her sobs were painful to hear. A two-inch gash had opened in her forehead just above her left eyebrow, deep enough that a white line of fat showed in places around the edges. Rooted to the spot with horror and at the same time still hideously attuned to the child hidden beneath the table, Sarah could only watch as blood began to fill the cut and spill down the woman’s face. The cashier—her name was Mary; Sarah could read it on her nametag—glanced up and locked eyes with Sarah for a timeless moment. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, welling over with tears and dark with pain and fear. The irises were a soft blue faded by age.
Help me,
they seemed to beg, and Sarah’s heart turned over. But there was nothing she could do that wouldn’t make things worse for all of them.

Thwack.
Wolfman delivered an openhanded slap to the side of Mary’s head, which caused it to snap to one side.

“Oh!” Her hand flew to the spot. She slumped over, trembling violently, her eyes huge pools of fear.

“Where’s the fucking money?”

“That’s all, I swear that’s all.” Mary’s voice was so thick with tears that the words were hard to understand. She sobbed louder as the robber thrust his face toward her menacingly, and dropped her gaze to the counter as if she were afraid to look at him. “Oh, Jesus, have mercy on me. Oh, Jesus, please have mercy.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah caught a flutter of white. The table skirt had moved, she realized. The little girl must have changed positions to get a better view.

Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. Her breathing suspended. The robbers had to have seen—but after a few tense seconds in which she quivered with horrified anticipation, she realized that they hadn’t.

Stay under there,
she urged the girl silently, even as she kept her gaze glued to the sobbing Mary.
For God’s sake, please, please stay quiet and don’t come out.

Wolfman rounded on Skeleton Boy. “Didn’t you tell me this time of night they usually have a couple thousand in here?”

“Yeah, Duke, they do. They always do.”

Wolfman went very still. His gaze stayed fixed on Skeleton Boy. The air between them suddenly crackled with tension. Fresh terror stabbed through Sarah as she realized what she had just heard: Wolfman’s name was Duke.
She—and Mary, and the child—now knew his name.

Worse had just taken a toboggan ride straight downhill.

“Did you just say my name? Are you fucking
stupid
?” Duke’s voice seethed with repressed rage before his gaze snapped back to the cashier. “I’m gonna ask you one more time:
Where’s the money?
”

Mary, looking even more terrified than Sarah felt, sucked in air.

“They—they came to get it early tonight. Just after—after ten. This is all I’ve taken in since. I wouldn’t lie to you. As Jesus is my witness, I wouldn’t lie to you.” Blood and tears commingled on her cheeks. Beneath the gore, her skin had gone gray.

“God
damn
it.” Duke turned to glare at Skeleton Boy. Sarah caught another flutter of white out of the corner of her eye. She could almost feel the weight of the child’s watching eyes. Her throat tightened. Her stomach turned inside out.
Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. . . .

“You can’t blame this on me,” Skeleton Boy protested.

“Shit I can’t.” Duke’s gaze shifted to Sarah. “Get her purse.” Then he addressed her directly as Skeleton Boy yanked the purse from her shoulder. “Anything in there?”

“About forty dollars. And credit cards.” Sarah was surprised at how steady her voice sounded. Inwardly, she was pretty much a quivering blob of jelly. Her legs felt as limp as overcooked spaghetti, and her heart was beating like the wings of a trapped wild bird. She no longer harbored any doubt at all: Sometime in the next several minutes, she and Mary were going to die. And if she didn’t stay quiet and hidden, the kid was going to die as well.