“Come on,” Anthony spurred him on. “A few more feet.”
The sliding glass door shattered.
Paul stumbled, drop to one knee, and Tyler spilled out of his arms onto the floor. They were only a few feet away. If only Anthony could wedge through the window.
From somewhere behind Anthony another loud bang ricocheted, but Anthony recognized this one immediately. A gunshot. Ellis and Dwayne had killed Brendan.
Paul had Tyler in his arms again, lifting just beneath the shoulders this time and letting his legs drag across the floor.
A police siren floated in the distance.
Tyler’s arms flapped against the wall. Paul raised him higher with a grunt and Anthony grabbed both arms. With Paul pushing, Anthony dragged Tyler out through the window to rest flat on the ground. His head lolled from side to side.
Don’t be dead, he begged, please don’t be dead!
He only had to help Paul for a moment before the kid was able to climb out on his own. The heat from the two fires was spreading around the house like the arms of the Devil.
Or the arms of Misery.
Anthony dragged Tyler away from the house to the line of trees separating the property from the neighbors’. The heat was still strong but tolerable. The peak of the fires had crested the top of the house. Within minutes, the whole place would be destroyed.
The girl pounced on Tyler and hugged him close. Her large eyes warned he and Paul to stay away; they were the eyes of a raccoon protecting her young. “My baby,” she said, “my baby, my baby.”
And my Brendan did this, Anthony thought and then immediately he was running back toward the cars thinking, the gunshot, the fucking gunshot.
The hatchback was gone. Ellis was on the ground with a bullet in his neck and blood pooled all around his head. Another man lay on the ground, half his head smashed to pieces from the Craftsman hammer that lay next to him covered in blood.
Dwayne and Brendan were gone.
12
“We should leave now,” Ellis said.
Dad and Paul had run off to the burning house and Brendan was left as a frozen statue. He said Tyler was in the house. That couldn’t be. God wouldn’t do this to him. Delaney he could understand; that was God’s warning for worshipping false deities, but Brendan had completely devoted himself to God’s cause. God could not have his brother. No, no, no!
Brendan almost ran for the house, but Dwayne’s hand gripped his shoulder. “Tyler will be fine,” he said. “Your father will save him. But this means that the mission has failed.”
“You knew Tyler was in there?”
The faintest trace of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “Of course not. These are not things for us to answer. Leave these things to God. We can only do our part.”
“But you said that everything would be good again, that this would bring my family back together.”
“Enough crying,” Ellis snapped. “We have to get out of here now. Someone probably called the police already.”
He turned back to his car and stopped. A man in jeans and a ratty T-shirt stood at the bottom of the driveway, gun in hand, lit cigarette in mouth. “That’s right,” the man said. “I did.”
Ellis tried to assess the man quickly. He put his hands up. “That’s good, then. We don’t have our cellphones or we would have—”
“Shut up,” the man said. His hair was a ruffled mess and deep-wrinkled creases marked his face. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re behind whatever is happening next door and you’re all going to jail.”
Dwayne’s hand brushed Brendan’s arm. His fingers gestured to the hammer Dad had dropped. It was a foot away.
The man stepped off his driveway, close to Ellis, turned toward Dwayne. “I saw you murder Cody Karras. I gave the police a full description but here you are. I’ve been waiting. I knew you’d come back to kill the crazy mother, too.”
A police siren cried nearby.
“I don’t know who you think we are,” Ellis said, stepped forward.
“I never killed nobody!” Dwayne yelled.
The man turned full on to Dwayne, gun poised. Ellis charged and crashed into the man; they tumbled to the street. Dwayne pushed Brendan aside, snatched up the hammer. He ran toward the scuffle and arrived as a gunshot exploded. Dwayne paused for a second and then came down with the hammer again and again. And again.
Brendan slowly approached. Ellis lay on his back, rolling side to side, hands clenched against his throat and blood spurting out between his fingers. His eyes darted all around, registering nothing, or maybe everything.
Dwayne stood, admired his work, dropped the hammer. He had smashed in the side of the neighbor’s face. Only one eye remained and half of his jaw. The blood and brain matter had splattered across his driveway.
Dwayne went to Ellis, knelt next to him. “You saved me and I wish I could do the same for you, but God has other plans.” He grabbed Ellis’s hands and pulled them off his throat. A fountain of blood spurted out. A moment later, Dwayne released Ellis’s hands and they dropped to the street. He stood and stared at Brendan.
Would he kill him now, too? Was this what God had been planning all along? What kind of fucked-up ending was this?
“Get in the car,” he said. “We’ve got to get away.”
“But my father, my brother.”
“Get in the car or I’ll walk over there and kill them both right now.”
“No,” Brendan said. “Leave us alone.” He tried to sound strong but he wanted to cry.
Dwayne smiled, even released a small chuckle. He bent over, picked up the hammer; when he turned back, Brendan had the gun in both hands, barrel poised on Dwayne.
For a moment, Dwayne said nothing. The police were nearly here. “Your hands are shaking.”
He stepped toward Brendan.
“Put down the hammer.”
Dwayne let it clatter to the street, stepped forward again.
“Why did God let this happen?”
Dwayne shook his head. “Why would you ruin everything now? God has a plan and we might not like it, but we must do His will.”
Another step.
Brendan’s index fingers rested on the trigger.
“Fuck His will. Fuck God!”
Another laugh, an adult amused at a silly child. “You still haven’t put it all together, have you?” Another step, just over an arm’s reach away. “Dr. Carroll. That stupid book he gave you. You were chosen. Selected. God wants this for you. This is your path.”
“Don’t move.”
“Give me the gun, son,” Dwayne said. “There’s a whole new life for you. We only have to search for it and God will guide us.”
“No.”
Dwayne took another step. Brendan clenched his jaw, tried to close his ears, narrowed his eyes. Was this what God wanted? Was God even involved at all? Was there any plan, any fucking plan at all? Tears muddled his vision. “No,” he said again, almost a whisper.
“God will deliver you as he does all his disciples.”
Dwayne’s hand reached out, cutting through the air in slow motion. What would Bo Blast do? What would Dad do? Why had he killed Delaney? Why?
Dwayne’s hand cupped the gun and Brendan released.
* * *
Dwayne drove them quickly away from the burning house and bloody bodies. Two cop cars sped past them. Brendan thought again of Bo Blast and his endless search for the dark villain. He wouldn’t have to look any further. Brendan had found the Darkman right here.