The Regulators

Now he was in a dark hall, just happy to realize he hadn’t wet his pants, or worse. People were screaming somewhere behind him. Mounted on the wall was a jury of Hummel figures. They had been placed on little platforms… and the Carvers had seemed so normal in other respects, he thought. He started to giggle and shoved the heel of one hand against his lips to stifle the sound. This was definitely not a giggling situation. There was a taste on his skin, just the taste of his own sweat, of course, but for a moment it seemed almost to be the taste of pussy, and he leaned forward, sure he was going to vomit. He realized he would almost certainly pass out if he did and that thought helped him to control the urge. He took his hand away from his mouth, and that helped more. He no longer felt much like laughing, either, and that was probably good.

“My daddy!” Ellen Carver was howling from behind him. Joh

“Hush, honey.” It was the new widow-Pie, David had always called her. Still sobbing herself but already trying to comfort. Joh

He couldn’t leave her out there. She had looked as dead as Mary and poor old Dave, but he had leaped over her like Jack over the candlestick, his ear screaming from the near miss and his balls drawn up and as hard as a couple of cherrystones, not a state in which a man could make a reasonable diagnosis.

He opened his eyes. A Hummel girl wearing a bo

He looked slowly to his left, hearing the tendons in his neck creak, and saw the Carvers” front door still standing open. The screen was ajar; the redhead’s hand, white and still as a starfish cast up on a beach, was caught in it. Outside, the air was gray with rain. It came down with a steady hissing sound, like the world’s biggest steam iron. He could smell the grass, like some sweet wet perfume. It was spiced with a tang of cedar smoke. God bless the lightning, he thought. The burning house would bring the police and the fire engines. But for now…

The girl. A little redheaded girl, like the one Charlie Brown was so crazy for. Joh

He started for the door. Someone grabbed his arm. He turned and saw the intent, fearful face of Dave Reed, the dark-haired twin.

“Don’t,” Dave said in a conspirator’s hoarse whisper. His adam’s apple went up and down in his throat like something in a slot. “Don’t, Mr Marinville, they could still be out there. You could draw fire.”

Joh

“Brad,” Joh

“Brad?”

“Okay. Don’t you go getting your head blown off, now. There’s been enough of that already.”

“I won’t. I’m attached to it.”

“Just make sure it stays attached to you.”

Joh

He dropped to his knees and crawled toward the cool, wet air coming through the screen. Toward that good smell of rain and grass. When he was as close as he could get, with his nose almost on the mesh, he looked to the right and then to the left. To the right was good-he could see almost all the way up to the corner, although Bear Street itself was lost in a haze of rain. Nothing there-no vans, no aliens, no loonies dressed like refugees from Stonewall Jackson’s army. He saw his own house next door; remembered playing his guitar and indulging all his old folkie fantasies. Ramblin Jack Marinville, always headed over the next horizon-line in those thirsty Eric Andersen boots of his, lookin for them violets of the dawn. He thought of his guitar now with a longing as sharp as it was pointless.

The view to the left wasn’t as good; was lousy, in fact. The stake fence and Mary’s crashed Lumina blocked any significant sightline down the hill. Some one-a sniper in Confederate gray, say-could be crouched down there almost anywhere, waiting for the next good target. A slightly used writer with a lot of old coffeehouse fantasies still knocking around in his head would do. Probably no one there, of course-they’d know the cops and the FD would be here any minute and would have made themselves scarce-but probably just didn’t seem good enough under these circumstances. Because none of these circumstances made sense.

“Miss?” he said to the sprawled tangle of red hair on the other side of the screen door. “Hey, miss? Can you hear me?” He swallowed and heard a loud click in his throat. His ear was no longer screaming, but there was a steady hum deep inside it. Joh

There was no sound, and the girl’s fingers didn’t wiggle. She didn’t appear to be breathing. He could see rain trickling down her pale redhead’s skin between the strap of her halter and the waistband of her shorts, but nothing else seemed to be moving. Only her hair looked alive, lush and vibrant, about two tones darker than orange. Drops of water glistened in it like seed pearls.

Thunder rumbled, less threatening now, moving off. He was reaching for the screen door when there was a much sharper report. To Joh

“That was just a shingle, I think,” a voice whispered from close behind him, and Joh

“What the fuck’re you doing here?” Joh

“White Folks” Fun Patrol,” Brad said. “Somebody’s got to make sure you guys don’t have too much of it-it’s bad for your hearts.”

“Thought you were going to get the rest of them in the kitchen.”

“And there they be,” Brad said. “Sitting on the floor in a neat little line. Cammie Reed tried the phone. It’s dead, just like yours. Probably the storm.”