Then he was into another drawer, and came out with a short silver mallet, the kind used to flatten meat.
He swung at the lock like a madman, and finally, the hardware that the padlock snapped onto came free. Lawrence got the pantry door open a crack, worked his fingers in, and broke the door open.
May pushed Jeffrey out first, then followed. “What’s happened?” she asked. “What was that noise?”
“Later,” I said. “We’re going down to my father’s place.”
The four of us went out the door as the roof caved in on the kitchen. Smoke and sparks billowed out around us.
In the light of the fire, Timmy stood, motionless, over the bodies of Wendell and the two pit bulls.
“This way,” Lawrence said, moving May and Jeffrey toward the gate and the lane that would lead us back to the cabins. Jeffrey had, clutched in one hand, the two Star Wars figures Lawrence had purchased for him that afternoon.
When he caught me noticing, he said, “I hid ’em in the pantry.”
We were all running now, and as we passed the gate, there was a loud racket coming from around the bend that led down to the cottages. Suddenly, Dad’s customized tractor appeared, Bob Spooner at the wheel. He saluted us as he blasted past for the highway.
May looked, agog, at the front of the farmhouse. Bits and pieces of van, no doubt mixed with bits and pieces of Dougie, were scattered as far as we could see in the moonlight.
It was anyone’s guess where the remains of Charlene had been scattered to.
We ran down the lane and around the bend, and when I saw the light over the back door of Dad’s cabin, it was like a beacon of hope, a sign that maybe, just maybe, we were going to get out of this alive.
We filed into Dad’s cabin, Lawrence first, then May and Jeffrey. I waited for Dad to catch up, held the door for him.
“Betty and Hank,” I said.
“Bob’ll get help,” Dad assured me. “You can count on him.”
“He’s still out there,” I told Lawrence. “Timmy’s still out there, with a shotgun.”
He nodded. “We have to hide everyone until help arrives.”
Dad said, “A boat. Why don’t we take a boat?”
Lawrence and I liked that idea, and ushered everyone out the front door of the cabin and down to the water.
Somewhere, off in the distance, I thought I heard a siren.
Dad had a small fishing boat like Bob’s, and we got May and Jeffrey into it. Dad, with some difficulty, got himself straddled over the back bench, and started pulling the outboard motor cord while Lawrence and I untied the boat from the dock.
“When it’s safe,” I said, “I’ll keep flashing your cabin lights on and off. Just go out there and sit until the signal.”
Dad gave me a thumbs-up, gently turned the throttle on the outboard, and the boat glided away over the dark lake.
“I want to sneak back, keep an eye on Betty and Hank,” Lawrence said. “Why don’t you wait here for the troops to arrive.”
I nodded as Lawrence ran off.
And then, for the first time in several hours, I was alone. I stood at the end of the dock, listening to the receding sound of Dad’s boat as he took May and Jeffrey to temporary safety.
The sirens sounded as though they were getting closer. Bob had done good.
I slipped into Dad’s cabin and turned off all the lights. No sense advertising to Timmy Wickens, wherever he might be, that anyone was here. In the dark, I ran some water at the sink and filled a glass. I drank it down fast, filled the glass a second time.
I wanted to call Sarah, but with the phone line cut, there wasn’t much I could do there. Our cells, our keys, were all with Wendell. In his jacket. So long as the dogs hadn’t eaten them, we’d probably be able to retrieve them from his body when the sun came up.
I went back outside, walked down to the water’s edge and gazed up at the stars. There was a glow in the sky beyond the trees. The last of the farmhouse hadn’t quite burned to the ground yet.
So much chaos, so much death, and now, things seemed almost peaceful.
My shirt-Lawrence’s shirt-reeked of smoke, and I felt confident I could slip into cabin 3, strip it off and find a fresh one, without having to turn on any lights. I walked over to the cabin, went in from the lake side.
Once the door had closed behind me and I was in the main room, the lights flashed on.
I blinked a couple of times, trying to adjust my eyes more quickly than they wanted to.
Standing by the other door, with his shotgun aimed straight at my chest, was Timmy Wickens.
38
“WHERE ARE MY DAUGHTER AND GRANDSON?” Timmy asked, the shotgun still raised and staring me in the face.
“They’re okay,” I said. “We got them out of the farmhouse just before the rest of it went.” I paused. “I don’t know if that’s good news or bad news as far as you’re concerned.”
He ignored that. “The rest of them,” he said. “They’re all dead.”
I nodded. “So it would seem. Dougie couldn’t have survived that explosion. Same with Charlene. And I’m guessing the dogs finished off Wendell.”
Timmy remained stone-faced. “The dogs are dead, too,” he said.
I nodded again. It would have been hard to offer condolences and sound sincere about all the lives lost, so I opted to say nothing.
“Where are they now?” Timmy asked. “My daughter. Jeffrey.”
“They’re safe,” I said.
“I asked you where they are.”
“They’re already miles from here,” I said. “Getting as far away as possible, as fast as possible.”
“I didn’t see any cars leave here,” he said. “Wendell got all the keys.”
“He missed a set,” I said, and swallowed. The sirens sounded closer. “They’re gone, and there isn’t anything I can do about it. Even if I wanted to. Wendell collected cell phones, too. I can’t call them, and if I could, they haven’t got a phone.”
Timmy Wickens thought about that, ran his tongue over his teeth. Then he sucked the spit off them, hissing, and bared his teeth like one of his now dead pit bulls.
Or a wolf.
“It’s your fault,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet went past my left ear and blew a hole in the wall. It was like thunder. It couldn’t have been meant to hit me. I was too close for him to miss.
“Everything’s gone wrong since you came up here. Started nosing around. Talking to May behind my back.”
He fired again. This time the bullet went past my right ear and blew out a window. I was cold with fear.
But I managed to find some words in my throat. I needed time for help to arrive, and talking might stretch things out.
“I think things went wrong when you let your dogs kill Morton Dewart,” I said, and swallowed. “That’s what got people asking questions. That, and killing Tiff Riley, stealing the fertilizer, those kinds of things.”
I thought I heard the sound of crunching gravel, of a car coming down the hill to the cabins.
Timmy motioned for me to move toward the center of the room. He took three steps in, away from the door.
“I was going to be somebody,” Timmy said.
“Excuse me?”
“I was going to be somebody. People would’ve talked about me. I’d have gone into the history books.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I said. “Just like McVeigh.”
Timmy nodded.
“But people would have had to find out,” I said. “You’d have to be caught for the world to know what you’d done.”
Timmy thought about that. “Eventually. I wouldn’t have minded waiting a little while. Turning on the news, hearing about them looking for me. Other people, cheering me on.” He moved forward and pushed the barrel of the gun up against my neck. “Except not people like you. People who don’t give a fuck about how this country is going into the toilet.”
Unless I stepped back, I couldn’t talk or swallow. I inched backwards, but Timmy moved with me, the barrel pushing into the flesh of my neck. Before I knew it, I was up against the wall.