He fit his finger between the rubber edges of the bus door and opened it. The first step was higher than he thought, and he tripped and almost fell. “Watch it. I almost blasted you right then.”
He couldn’t suppress a giggle. For reasons of his own, Marvin matched his laugh. “Head on back, Tanner. Pretend you’re on a field trip to the zoo.”
He walked down the aisle between the broken seats, smelling rot and rust and the lingering scent of skunk. “Why here?” he asked as he reached the rear.
“Because you’ll keep in here just fine till I get time to dig a hole out back and open that emergency door and dump you in. Plus it’s quiet. I figure with the bus and the blanket no one will hear a thing. Sit.”
He sat. Marvin draped the blanket across the arm that held the gun, then extended the shrouded weapon toward his chest. He had no doubt that Marvin would shoot without a thought or fear. “Any last words, Tanner? Any parting thoughts?”
“Just that you forgot something.”
“What?”
“You left the door open.”
Marvin glanced quickly toward the door in the front of the bus. He dove for Marvin’s legs, sweeping at the gun with his left hand as he did so, hoping to dislodge it into the folds of the blanket where it would lie useless and unattainable.
“Cocksucker.”
Marvin wrested the gun from his grasp and raised it high, tossing off the blanket in the process. He twisted frantically to protect against the blow he knew was coming, but Marvin was too heavy and strong, retained the upper hand by kneeling on his chest. The revolver glinted in the darkness, a missile poised to descend.
Sound split the air, a piercing scream of agony from the cabin or somewhere near it. “What the hell?” Marvin swore, started to retreat, then almost thoughtlessly clubbed him with the gun, once, then again. After a flash of pain a broad black creature held him down for a length of time he couldn’t calculate.
When he was aware again he was alone in the bus, lying in the aisle. His head felt crushed to pulp. He put a hand to his temple and felt blood. Midst throbbing pain he struggled to his feet and made his way outside and stood leaning against the bus while the night air struggled to clear his head.
He took a step, staggered, took another and gained an equilibrium, then lost it and sat down. Back on his feet, he trudged toward the porch and opened the door. Behind him, the nanny laughed again.
The cabin was dark, the only light the faint flicker from the stove behind the curtain. He walked carefully, trying to avoid the litter on the floor, the shapes in the room. Halfway to the back his foot struck something soft. As he bent to shove it out of his way it made a human sound. He knelt, saw that it was Iris, then found a lamp and turned it on.
She was crumpled, face-down, in the center of the room, arms and legs folded under her, her body curled to avoid assault. He knelt again, heard her groan once more, and saw that what he’d thought was a piece of skirt was in fact a pool of blood and what he’d thought was shadow was a broad wet trail of the selfsame substance leading toward the rear of the cabin.
He ran his hands down her body, feeling for wounds. Finding none, he rolled Iris to her side, then to her back. Blood bubbled from a point beneath her sternum. Her eyelids fluttered, open, closed, then open again. “He shot me,” she said. “It hurt so bad I couldn’t stop crying so he shot me.”
“I know. Don’t try to talk.”
“Did he shoot the babies, too? I thought I heard …”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you look? Please?”
He nodded, stood up, fought a siege of vertigo, then went behind the curtain, then returned to Iris. “They’re all right.”
She tried to smile her thanks. “Something scared him off. I think some people were walking by outside and heard the shot and went for help. I heard them yelling.”
“Where would he go, Iris?”
“Up in the woods. On his dirt bike. He knows lots of people up there. They grow dope, live off the land. The cops’ll never find him.” Iris moaned again. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know. Is there a phone here?”
She shook her head. “Down at the end of the street. By the market.”
“I’m going down and call an ambulance. And the cops. How long ago did Marvin leave?”
She closed her eyes. “I blacked out. Oh, God. It’s real bad now, Mr. Tanner. Real bad.”
“I know, Iris. You hang on. I’ll be back in a second. Try to hold this in place.” He took out his handkerchief and folded it into a square and placed it on her wound. “Press as hard as you can.” He took her left hand and placed it on the compress, then stood up.
“Wait. I have to …”
He spoke above her words. “You have to get to a hospital. I’ll be back in a minute and we can talk some more.”
“But…”
“Hang on.”
He ran from the cabin and down the drive, spotted the lights of the convenience market down the street and ran to the phone booth and placed his calls. The police said they’d already been notified and a car was on the way. The ambulance said it would be six minutes. As fast as he could he ran back to the cabin, hoping it would be fast enough.
Iris had moved. Her body was straightened, her right arm outstretched toward the door, the gesture of a supplicant. The sleeve of her blouse was tattered, burned to a ragged edge above her elbow. Below the sleeve her arm was red in spots, blistered in others, dappled like burned food. The hand at its end was charred and curled into a crusty fist that was dusted with gray ash. Within the fingers was an object, blackened, burned, and treasured.
He pried it from her grasp. The cover was burned away, and the edges of the pages were curled and singed, but they remained decipherable, the written scrawl preserved. The list of names and places was organized to match the gaily painted boxes in the back. Carson City. Boise. Grants Pass. San Bernardino. Modesto. On and on, a gazetteer of crime.
“I saved it,” Iris mumbled. “I saved it for my babies.”
He raised her head to his lap and held it till she died. Then he went to his car and retrieved his B Box baby and placed her in her appointed crib. For the first time since he’d known her the baby made only happy sounds, an irony that was lost on the five dead children at her flank and on the just dead woman who had feared it all.
1987
BRENDAN DUBOIS
A TICKET OUT
Brendan DuBois (1959-) was born in New Hampshire and has lived there his entire life. A former newspaper reporter, he has written a variety of novels and has been a prolific short story writer, with more than one hundred published stories to his credit.
His mystery novels, set around the New Hampshire seacoast, often feature Lewis Cole, a magazine writer who was once a research analyst for the Department of Defense. The first book in the series is Dead Sand (1994), followed by Black Tide (1995), Shattered Shell (1999), Killer Waves (2002), Buried Dreams (2004), and Primary Storm (2006). He has had even greater success with international thrillers, notably Resurrection Day (1999), an alternative-history novel set in 1972, a decade after the Cuban missile crisis had provoked an atomic war between the Soviet Union and the United States. It received the Sidewise Award for Best Alternative History Novel at the World Science Fiction Convention. Other thrillers include Twilight (2007), about the aftermath of a successful terrorist attack on the U.S.; Final Winter (2006), a nail biter about a planned terrorist attack on the U.S.; Betrayed (2003), which delves into the real-life mystery of the two thousand servicemen missing in action during the Vietnam War; and Six Days (2001), about a plot to overthrow the U.S. government. His short stories have received numerous awards, including two Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America. “The Dark Snow” was selected for The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century.