I ripped the gloves and duct tape off, pulled Misty’s keys out of my pocket and leaned over the side, trying to fit them into the driver’s door. I didn’t want to get back into the water again unless I had to. I had just slipped the key into the slot when I looked up to check on Misty and saw Junior crouched in the back of his truck, watching me.
I flinched. The keys slipped out of the lock and disappeared into the water.
CHAPTER 34
Junior’s shirt had been burned off. The skin on his chest looked charred and loose. Most of his pompadour was gone, leaving nothing but a burnt scalp and a few scraggly strands around his black ears. He had Bert’s Rambo knife clenched between his teeth, like a pirate who had leapt from a burning ship. He watched Misty for a moment.
She hadn’t seen him yet through the thick smoke.
Junior whipped his bald, smoking head around and stared at me. When he took the knife from between his teeth, I could tell he was grinning. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t dead. His nose had been broken twice, Fat Ernst had kicked in him solidly in the head, and the last time I’d seen him, he’d been on fire. It didn’t make sense. Then I remembered those scars on his chest. And what Pearl had said. She claimed to have brought Junior back from the dead three times. Maybe that was true. Maybe he’d built up some kind of resistance, sort of immunity, to death itself. Smoke poured from the rent in the front wall, rolling down over the Cadillac, over the truck. Junior turned back to the truck’s cab and ducked down. I lost him in the smoke.
“Misty!” I screamed.
She stood at the top of the roof, waving the smoke away from her face. Flames were now breaking through all over the place, erupting out of the roof in pools of embers and flames surrounded by blackened shingles.
“Junior’s alive! He’s right there!” I screamed hoarsely, jabbing my finger at the Sawyers’ truck. Misty instantly dropped into a crouch, watching the front of the building. For a brief moment, nothing moved but the black smoke.
Junior eased his way onto the roof of the cab. With his chainsaw.
“Motherfuck—” I stepped back, preparing to jump and swim the fifteen or twenty feet to the restaurant. The keys were gone, and I didn’t know what else to do. But even as I grabbed a deep breath and held, I knew I wouldn’t make it in time. Junior was going to kill Misty and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
Then I saw my rifle in the rack in the back window of her pickup.
I kicked at the glass as hard as I could and heard a teeth-rattling crack, but it didn’t break. I glanced up; Junior was leaping from the truck’s hood to the roof, his skin still smoking or steaming in the rain. I kicked at the back window again. And again. It finally cracked on the third try, and I spent another couple of precious seconds knocking the loose glass out of the way. I ignored Misty’s Anschütz and went for Grandpa’s Springfield instead.
I straightened, rifle in my hands.
Junior yanked on the cord and the saw started with a hungry roar. Misty backed slowly along the crest of the roof, still cradling her left hand with her right. Junior hit the trigger a couple of times and the sound of the revving engine echoed back across the floodwater.
Junior made his move and the rifle found my shoulder.
As he scrambled up the roof, chainsaw screaming, I settled, zeroing in on the saw, and fired. Junior was seven feet from Misty when his chainsaw exploded in a quick burst of fire and sparks. The bullet had found its way into the gas tank, just as I had hoped. I hadn’t wanted to take a chance on missing his head, and if I hit him in the upper body, Iwas scared that it might not even slow him down, not with Pearl’s symbols carved all over his chest. So I figured I’d take out his weapon first, give Misty a fighting chance.
The small explosion knocked Junior sideways into the roof. The chain broke loose, flipped up and over, and wrapped around Junior’s forearm, burying itself deep. He slammed into the smoking shingles, blood spraying from his arm, and slid headfirst down the roof. I thought he was just going to slip right over the edge, but he caught himself with his good arm, slid around, and started creeping back up the slope.
I found a nice sweet spot at the back of his head between the iron sights, whispered, “Fucking A plus you little cocksuckers,” and gently squeezed the trigger.
A dry click; the gun was empty. I had forgotten that there was only one bullet left after shooting at the squirrels yesterday.
Junior kept going, dragging himself up the roof toward Misty with his one arm. The other arm, the one that now looked as if it had suddenly grown a deep black tattoo, flopped helplessly next to him, leaving a trail of blood. Misty dropped to her haunches and kicked out, slamming her boot into the top of his head. All that did was piss off Junior even more. His good hand lashed out and grabbed Misty’s ankle.
I ducked back to the broken window and jerked the .270 Anschütz out of the gun rack. I jerked the bolt back, wanting to check how many shells were left, and stupidly flung a fresh shell out into the air. It hit the top of the cab and bounced off, landing somewhere out in the water. At least the clip held three more shells. I just prayed Junior couldn’t handle three bullets.
I pivoted, pulling the rifle up to my shoulder, slamming the bolt home. Through the scope, smoke from the burning roof leapt into instant, crisp clarity. I swung the rifle to the left, just in time to watch Junior jerk Misty down next to him. He grabbed her hair and rolled, pulling her on top of him.
I slid my finger anxiously around the trigger, but I couldn’t fire. Junior was using Misty as a shield. He wrapped his ruined forearm around her throat, and I could see where the teeth of the chain had bitten deep, right down to the bone. Blood surged out of the gash, washing across Misty’s chest. Junior’s eyes found mine from behind Misty’s blond hair.
I let the rifle roam down their bodies, looking for something vital, anything to shoot. I realized that being on fire was the least of Junior’s problems. He’d been in the water too long. The worms had been feasting. His charbroiled skin, from the waistband of his tight, ripped jeans, through his chest, up into his neck and across his face, rippled and bulged as countless worms writhed through the flesh underneath.
Misty, laying flat on her back on top of Junior, spread her legs, flattened her boots, and whipped her head back into Junior’s face, cracking the back of her skull into Junior’s nose. I hoped she’d broken his nose again; that would be the third time in twenty-four hours. It didn’t slow Junior down a whole lot, but it was time enough to plant the cross hairs right at the bottom zipper of his jeans. If nothing else, I figured blowing his nuts off would make me feel better.
I fired but saw only a small pop in the shingles, an inch beneath Junior’s crotch, realizing too late that the rifle had been sighted in for Misty’s eyes, not mine. “Oh, shit,” I whispered. Two bullets left.
Junior knew that I had taken a shot. He kept his bleeding arm around Misty’s neck and sat up, still hiding behind her. I saw the knife. He gripped it with his good hand, brought it over and down, sinking it into the roof between Misty’s thighs. He twisted the blade and pulled it tight to Misty’s crotch.
I got the message. If I shot him, then Misty would slide into the blade.
Misty bared her teeth, prepared to hit him again with the back of her head. But Junior was ready. He clamped his teeth together around Misty’s right ear, biting down hard. She froze. Junior let go of her, bobbed his head down, grinning at me from behind Misty’s bloody right ear. A bloody ball of snot appeared in his left nostril and sliddown his upper lip as the head of a worm appeared. It tested the air, then oozed out of Junior’s nose about an inch. Junior ignored it and grabbed her hip with his free hand and forced her pelvis down against the sloping roof, against the knife.