Clenching his teeth, he waded into the laundry room, avoiding the rent and torn bodies. He moved as quickly as he could, without slipping on the blood-greased tile. In the kitchen, he saw red footprints going into the dining room and he followed, inserting his finger inside the trigger guard. He didn’t want to be fooled again, but he didn’t want to be caught off guard either.
In the dining room, he saw that the carpet had soaked the blood from the Ragged Man’s shoes as it was soaking the blood off his. The footprints vanished by the time he reached the living room. He checked the front door and saw that it was locked with the latch thrown from the inside. The Ragged Man was still in the house.
He checked the downstairs den and the room Judy used as an office. Both empty with no signs of having been disturbed. The man had to be upstairs.
Again he grabbed onto a rail with the gun out in front. He was nervous, tense and excited. Every fiber of his being was awake and taut. He was ready to kill and he was ready to die. Either way, it made no difference.
At the top of the stairs, he checked J.P.’s bedroom, the bathroom, the guest bedroom, and last on his list, Judy’s bedroom. He took in the room as he made his way to the closet. He opened the door and eyed her clothes. This was a woman’s private place, with a woman’s private things, and he had no business spending any time longer than necessary.
He started toward Judy’s private bath, then stopped. An uneasy feeling crept up his spine and niggled at his mind. He hadn’t checked the downstairs bath. He turned and hurried through the bedroom and down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he knew that the Ragged Man had been hiding in the bathroom, for scrawled in blood on the living room wall were two words:
OUTSIDE MOTHERFUCKER
Sam Storm looked between the kitchen blinds and couldn’t believe his eyes. Gordon had another gun. Where did the son of a bitch keep getting them? He tried to study the man’s face. He wished he was close enough so that he could see his eyes. He wasn’t sure, but the man didn’t seem afraid.
He watched as Gordon made his way to the loft and inspected the scene inside. It seemed like he spent too much time studying the slaughter and it seemed like it didn’t frighten him as it was designed to. When Gordon turned away from the loft and continued toward the house, Storm saw the determined set of his jaw, and when he closed the distance, he was able to see the cold-green hate radiating from his eyes, and Sam Storm was afraid.
He didn’t mind killing, but he didn’t want to die. Not now, not ever, and he didn’t want Gordon to win this battle. Caution was called for, so when he heard Gordon’s steps on the back landing, he jumped into the half-bath that adjoined the kitchen and hid in the small shower, drawing the curtains.
He hated the fact that he was cowering like a girl, but there was something about Gordon that he hadn’t counted on. A fierce determination. Somehow the man had gotten past the police roadblocks and into town. Somehow he’d managed to acquire an awesome amount of firepower. And somehow he’d had managed to turn Sam Storm’s spine into jelly.
He had become convinced there was nothing left, alive or dead, that could frighten him, and the thought that he was frightened of Gordon threatened to loosen his bowels.
He felt more than heard Gordon enter the house and pass by his hiding place. He shivered, unable to move. He leaned back against the tile wall and wished the man would go away, but he knew he wouldn’t.
After what seemed forever, he heard footsteps overhead and he knew Gordon was upstairs. He left the shower covered in sweat and a foul odor and, not wanting to seem the complete coward, he went to the service porch and wiped his hand in the blood. Then he went to the living room and wrote his message on the wall. A challenge he didn’t intend to keep.
Let Gordon search outside to his heart’s content. He wouldn’t find him, because Sam Storm was going to be long gone.
He hastily left the house out the back way, starting toward the woods, when something caught his eye.
Movement by the loft.
A baby black cat was in the loft, feasting on the carnage. Storm studied the scene and drew comfort from it. For a moment he forgot about Gordon upstairs as he approached the loft to watch. The small animal stopped its gorging as Storm approached and locked its baby black eyes onto Storm, and for a darting instant, they flashed red and Storm knew he wasn’t alone anymore, and he knew he wasn’t going to run away from Rick Gordon.
Rick looked away from the gruesome message and started toward the kitchen. He took in the new set of footprints and saw where the Ragged Man had smeared his hand in the pigeon blood. Without a thought, he crossed through the bloody mess, this time ignoring it, and stepped out onto the back landing.
This time there was no hesitation on his part and he didn’t grab the rail as he jumped down the steps. He moved in a crouch to the center of the clearing, studying both houses and the loft. Seeing no sign of life, he made his way to the clearing’s edge and started to walk the perimeter, looking for a sign.
He didn’t have to look hard. The Ragged Man had marked the spot with one of the remaining birds. The dead pigeon was laying on the ground with its wings spread and a severed head six inches from the body, acting as a pointer, pointing to the path Judy took every morning to the beach.
Rick noticed that the red-check head didn’t match the blue-bar body and he felt a second’s sorrow for the two dead animals as he passed their remains and stepped onto the path.
He moved quickly down it, figuring that the Ragged Man was making his way to the beach. He felt eyes upon him. He turned, a turn that saved his life. Something slammed into him, knocking him down and sending the gun flying. He felt cold steel slice into his shoulder, where an instant ago his neck had been.
He rolled away from his assailant, tried to get up, but the Ragged Man grabbed him by the foot with his left hand and sliced into his leg with his right. Rick kicked at the hand holding his bleeding leg with his free leg. The Ragged Man jumped back, screaming, and both men scrambled to their feet. Rick darted his eyes around the clearing searching for the gun and found it, but the big man blocked his path. Both men were panting hard and Rick was losing blood.
The Ragged Man lunged for him, swinging the knife. Rick dodged back and, standing on his good leg, kicked the big man in the balls. The Ragged Man grunted, stepping back, temporarily disabled, staggering. Rick was too weak to deliver much force behind the kick.
The man fell, moaning, and Rick started to move in to finish him, but stopped his attack when he saw why the man had gone down. He was feigning injury to distract Rick. He had fallen toward the gun, was reaching for it as Rick turned and left the path, thrashing into the woods seconds before a bullet whizzed over his head.
The man didn’t fire a second time, because in his frenzy to put distance between him and the armed man, Rick had vanished into the thick woods.
“ I’ve got the gun now!” the man boomed into the forest.
Rick didn’t answer.
“ It’s only a matter of time before I get you.”
Rick still didn’t answer.
“ I spent two years in Vietnam tracking VC. You’re no match for me!” the Ragged Man shouted.
Rick took off his shirt and checked his shoulder. He had been lucky, the cut wasn’t deep and the blood was light, not dark. His leg was a different matter. He was pumping too much blood out of the injury for it to be a mere flesh wound. He tore the shirt into two strips and knotted them together. Then he tied it around his leg as tightly as he dared.
With the makeshift tourniquet in place, he started through the woods, not sure of his direction, but hoping he was circling back toward the clearing and away from the Ragged Man. He was going to have to live to fight another day.