Ingles shook his head, as if saddened by Ray’s delusions. He clucked his tongue. “Santa, eh? Interesting handle, Ray. But no one really believes in Santa anymore. No one but you. I doubt if even your kid believes in Santa anymore.”
Ingles gave Ray a look and chuckled. Ray stiffened at the mention of his son and met Ingle’s eyes for a full second. He knew, right then, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this bastard knew what had happened to his son. Perhaps he had even had a hand in it. Quite possibly, he had enjoyed himself.
His mind went into a small box then. It was a very tight fit, but he could squeeze it all in. It felt good inside this mental box, where thought and speech were unnecessary.
He quickly found that there were peepholes drilled in the walls of his box. They afforded a limited view of the real world. All he saw through those peepholes was Ingles’ eyes, and the gun. The moment Ingles moved his eyes to one side to tap out his cigarette ashes onto Ray’s desk, Ray sprang out of the box and attacked him.
In two steps, he collided with the man. With an insensate howl, he smashed his head and body into him, wanting to hurt him, wanting to do anything he could to him. He felt the man’s nose against his lowered forehead. It crunched, then splattered wetly. The gun popped once, but Ray didn’t feel anything. The bullet may have gotten him, or it may not have. It didn’t matter.
They were on the floor then, scattering computer printouts and rolling, swiveling chairs everywhere. It was an animal fight. They hammered fists, rammed in knees, gouged with stiff fingers. Ray’s ears rang and it felt as if some of his fingers were either missing or simply didn’t work anymore. Then there was an explosion in his ribs and he couldn’t breathe. But he kept on hammering and jabbing with no thought to defending himself. He just wanted to hurt Ingles, the man who had hurt his son.
Brenda screamed at them both. He saw a flash of her as he rolled to the top. He had a sense that he was winning the struggle. Then she brought the paper-cutter down on top of his skull.
The old, green-painted metal instrument had been made in the 60’s. Back then, they had built such things to last, and had used real metal in them. Lots of it. His consciousness imploded. He slid to the floor atop Ingles and it seemed to him that he could feel his mind running out of his ears and onto the dusty lab tiles.
“Thank you, Brenda,” he heard Ingles’ distant voice say. Then the gun popped three times. At least, he thought it was three times. Afterwards, he was never sure.
Then his mind climbed back into that very small box and closed the door behind him. The world vanished entirely.
… 36 Hours and Counting…
Ray’s head felt like a cracked egg. Sticky stuff ran out of his nose, mouth and hair. He couldn’t open his left eye. His right eye opened, but only half-way. The brilliant scene of the lab glared into his brain. He closed his eye again. Just breathing was difficult. He laid there for a time, touching his head, feeling for the wound. A patch of hair and scalp had been removed from the back of his skull.
Gradually, he became aware that he was lying across something hard and painful. Feeling it with the groping fingers of his left hand, he vaguely recognized the paper-cutter that had dropped him earlier. Groaning, he rolled away from it and struggled to his elbows. He forced himself to open both eyes, then he closed them again, squinching them tightly against the brilliance. How could the lab fluorescents be so damnably bright? They had always been a flickering, bluish glow that failed to completely illuminate the place. Many of his students called this lab The Cave.
This light seemed different, it was more like… His eyes snapped open, and despite the glare, he looked to the high row of windows that ran the length of the lab’s north wall. Daylight flooded in and drove a fist into his skull, but he struggled not to close his eyes again. It was morning, of that he was sure. Straining, he turned to look at the big clock on the wall. It was nearly seven. It was Saturday, so only a few people would be coming in, but it didn’t matter. There were people on the campus by now, and it was daylight outside and he needed to get out of here.
It was when he climbed to his knees that he noticed the gun in his right hand. He paused to look at it stupidly. Ingles’ pistol, it had to be. He gripped it in his bloody hands. He looked around the lab now, and finally saw Brenda.
She lay face down beside him with her hand draped over the paper-cutter. He dropped the gun and reached out to her, and made an odd, gurgling sound in his throat. Moving stiffly, he rolled her over onto her back. Three holes punctured her blouse. There was dried blood soaked in circles around the wounds, but not much of it. The bullets must have stopped her heart quickly. Ray felt her carotid for a pulse, but he had little hope. She was dead.
Breathing through his mouth, he looked at the gun in his hand, then at Brenda’s body. He nodded his head. Ingles’ hadn’t needed to make a citizen’s arrest. Instead, he had set them up and done away with both of them. Ray could see the logic clearly, despite his aching head. Shooting them both would have resulted in proof of a third party. Instead, Ingles had removed Brenda directly and hung yet another crime around Ray’s neck.
He looked at Brenda again, at the shocked, blank look on her face. He closed her eyes with his clumsy fingers, sure that he was making a mistake, but not caring at that moment. He wondered if tears would come, but they didn’t. He was too stunned even to grieve for her. That would have to wait until later. He and his son were still among the living, so they came first.
Then there came a rattling at the lab doors. Ray’s eyes flicked to the clock again. It was seven now, straight up. It had to be the janitor, Charley Tai. Lab aides and grad students didn’t get up this early.
Ray heaved himself up and went into Brenda’s office. He stumbled into the desk, closed the door behind him and locked it. Inside, he flicked off the lights. Like many of the faculty and staff offices, Brenda’s office door had a tall glass window in it. Ray watched from the darkened interior of the office. The main lab doors swung open. Charley walked in, kicked down the doorstop and began emptying trashcans. Ray looked around and noticed the door at the back of Brenda’s office. She rarely used it and always kept it locked for security reasons. He fumbled in his pocket and felt the master key that had helped get him into all of this in the first place. He found his baseball cap, part of his disguise-how absurd that all seemed now-and pulled it down over his head wound. The pain he felt from just brushing the bloody gash made him wince.
He pushed junk out of the way of the outside door and worked at getting the key in the lock. Out in the lab, Charley Tai was cranking up the vacuum now, providing cover noise. The janitor had yet to make the grisly discovery that awaited him.
Ray paused at the door. On impulse, he stepped to the Brenda’s terminal and typed a message to Agent Vasquez. With each keystroke he left a bloody fingerprint, but he figured it didn’t matter. He looked guilty as hell anyway.
Agent Vasquez — Shooter = Santa = Snowflake = Frosty = Ingles.
He hit the enter key and then unlocked the door. Behind him, he heard a shout of dismay and horror. He threw open the door and rushed out into the blinding sunlight.
… 35 Hours and Counting…
Spurlock awakened earlier than usual. He found himself sprawled across the front seats of the van. His back ached and he groaned when he tried to get up.
The Colt 45 malt liquor bottle slid from his grasp and rattled on the floor of the van. The sound shattered his glassed-over mind. He moaned and lay back, hurting in a hundred places. The big forty-ounce bottles had done their job well, all three of them. At two bucks each on special, they had to be one of the cheapest drunks in town. He was sick. Like the guns they were named after, the Colts had blown fist-sized chunks out of his brain. Last night, this had been a pleasant thing, the first real relief from the withdrawal symptoms that had begun ravaging his body in earnest.
Now, however, he regretted everything. He thought to himself that, ironically, he would have rather worked an honest month at an honest job for the money that he had yet to squeeze out of this mess. He chuckled and groaned again. He farted wetly, then heard the kid stir in his cage.
“You’ve got a surprise ride waiting for you today, punk,” he told the kid. “Just as soon as I’m able to move, that is.”
After dozing for perhaps another ten minutes, Spurlock managed to rouse himself again. He had to either get up or piss his pants. There had been mornings past when he had taken the latter option, but not today. Today, he needed to do slightly better than that. Resolved to facing the sun that he knew blazed just outside, he kicked open the van door and staggered out into the orchard.
He pissed on a black-trunked almond tree and then doubled over. His belly felt tight and sick. His gut gave him a wrenching pain that couldn’t be relieved by urination alone. Without hesitating, he shoved a filthy finger down his throat and gagged. The foamy contents of his stomach splattered the dirt.
“Oh shit,” he slurred and fell back against the van. He panted for a time, then felt better. It was time to get moving.
He struggled back into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. At least the bitch still started properly. In fact, if it wasn’t for the billowing white smoke he might have tried to beat it to death all the way to San Francisco. But he knew a cop would have gotten him before he made it as far as Fairfield. So, the van had to go.
Seen from the edge the hole was incredibly deep. He had tried to dig a ramp down into it, but that had taken more time, and in the heat of the night and he had skimped. All he had wanted last night was to get to those three bottles of amber bliss. Now, as he drove the shaking machine to the brink, he was daunted.
“Holy shit, we’re in for a ride, kid,” he said aloud. On impulse, he threw open the curtains that divided the front seats from the cargo section. He looked over his shoulder and leered at the kid in the cage. He noted the kid’s big, hungry eyes and the fingers which gripped the bars. Those fingers should not be loose. The kid had untied himself.
“So, you little fuck, you got loose last night, eh?” shouted Spurlock. “Well, you won’t find it so easy to slip out of this one!”
With that, he eased the van into drive and they rumbled, shook and dipped over the edge.
“Next stop, Hell’s Kitchen!” roared Spurlock.
The black earth of the orchard swallowed the van whole. Only a foul cloud of exhaust was left behind. It lay in a spreading mass on the floor of the orchard like the devil’s own stinking breath.
Inside his tiny cage, Justin began to scream.
… 34 Hours and Counting…
“Damn,” said Agent Vasquez. That was all she could think to say.
“I know, I didn’t want to think it was all him, either,” said Johansen.
Vasquez glanced up at him then turned back to the murder scene. She frowned. She knew Johansen was lying for her sake, he had always counted Vance as the sole perpetrator. Still, she couldn’t find it in herself to be angry with him for patronizing her a bit. When faced with death, in all its ignominy, she always found it difficult to be angry with anyone who was on her side. Usually, she felt closer to them. Somehow, the working relationship with a partner helped to reassure her that she was still alive, that death wasn’t close at hand.
She felt, rather than saw, Johansen raise his big hand up. It hovered for perhaps two seconds over her shoulder. He wasn’t sure, she knew, if he should comfort her or not. She tensed up, but tried not to show that she knew the hand was there. She herself wasn’t even sure how she would react if he did touch her. It wasn’t something they normally did. But then, they didn’t normally work cases like this. The best thing about working the clean stuff, like electronic crimes, was that you didn’t have to face blood and death. Usually, the worst one saw of humanity was something like Nog’s apartment.
Johansen withdrew his hand. She breathed deeply, realizing only then that she had been holding her breath. The spell was broken.
“Vance has just put himself on the Most Wanted list,” said Vasquez. She stepped over the corpse and away from her partner. She moved about the scene, looking, but not disturbing things. “I’m putting him down as our number one suspect for the virus, his son’s disappearance and the murder of Brenda Hastings. What’s more, he’s now to be considered armed and dangerous. Do you agree?”
Johansen nodded. He flipped out his cell phone and made the call. Soon every squad car in Northern California would be getting the message.
Vasquez moved over to the terminal with the bloodstained keyboard. She checked the message on the screen. Santa? Frosty? She made sure her notes had every detail down, then shook her head. She would check it out, of course, but it seemed like the work of someone delusional, someone looking for clues that would erase the unthinkable truth.