Crap. I yanked back and stumbled backward, pulling the last of the silver free on that one bar; it snapped into a tight coil like the world’s most expensive Slinky as I looked around for someplace to go. The only obvious place was under the bleachers, and it was a tight squeeze to get by, but better hurt than dead was my motto. I jammed myself through the narrow opening and crouched down in the darkness beneath. Michael, I was thinking, where are you? Because this didn’t bode well, not at all.
I heard the voices first. The words were muffled, but the music was clear—they were upset about the missing knob on the door. I heard metal scrape as they pushed their way inside, and moved around a little to find a good vantage point to peer through the slats between the bleacher seats.
Mr. Batty was one of the men, which somehow failed to surprise me; he was still carrying around the baseball bat, swinging it like a nightstick. Next to him was a sleek, thin man in a black turtleneck sweater and dark pants; he had a GQ look going on, and under other circumstances I might have thought he was eye-worthy, but not now. Not when I saw him rattle Jeremy’s cage, testing the lock, and say, “You’ve had visitors, haven’t you, Jeremy?”
Jeremy didn’t say anything, just stared at Mr. Slick with cold, dead eyes. Mr. Slick didn’t seem nearly as bothered as he should have been, and he shrugged and turned to Batty. “Harry, make a thorough sweep. I want everybody on their feet and checking every corner. If they see anybody who doesn’t belong, I want any intruder’s body dumped right here, dead or alive, clear?”
“Clear, boss,” Harry said. He sounded happy with the assignment, and strolled off swinging his big stick. As he left, another guy came in . . . and man, he was massive. This was undoubtedly the carnival’s strongman-slash–big guy. . . . He was seven feet at least, and broad as a truck. Wearing a wifebeater tee assured that everyone could see the steroid-thick bulge of his muscles. He had a shaved head, lots of tats that seemed to feature overly endowed women, and nasty little beady eyes. Not too smart, but plenty mean, and from the state of the T-shirt, personal hygiene wasn’t high on his list.
I reached into the pocket of my cargo pants and pulled out my cell phone—sensibly on silent—and frantically texted Michael. Whr r u? Trbl!! I shielded the screen with one hand, in case someone noticed the unearthly glow coming from under the bleachers, but nobody was looking my way except Jeremy.
Skinhead walked up to the bars and slammed a giant forearm into them. Jeremy didn’t flinch, and he didn’t back up, which made Skinhead laugh. He had a voice that didn’t match his exterior at all—high as mine, sounded like. “Your pet rat looks hungry, boss,” he said. “Got anybody to feed it?”
“Later,” the boss man said. “Right now, we’ve got a bigger problem, because Jeremy here has had some friends drop by, haven’t you, Jeremy?”
Jeremy stood there staring at him for a long, silent few seconds, and then he smiled, and swear to God, I felt ice forming along my spine in sharp little stabby crystals. That was not a vampire’s smile, as awful as those could be—it was something else completely, something I didn’t get at all.
And then Jeremy said, “She’s under the bleachers,” and I couldn’t hold back a gasp. I backed away, but that wasn’t going to help . . . not like there were any secret exits back here, and Skinhead was grinning and heading my direction. God, why had he done that? Did that idiot not understand that we’d come to help him?
No, of course he did, I realized . . . but he just didn’t give a damn. He was on fire, and he liked to see everything else burn.
I texted Michael again with a lightning-quick 911!!!!!, which might not matter since he hadn’t responded yet to my first text for help anyway. Something was wrong, and not just with Jeremy—this whole thing felt utterly bad. Drastically wrong.
I had the gun, and it felt heavy in my hand. Shane hadn’t just given the thing to me; he’d forced me to go to the range with him many times, practice target shooting, practice loading and unloading it in the dark. He’d even tested me (with an empty gun) in a deserted house where he’d popped out of a closet at me to see what I’d do.
I’d screamed and shot him six times, theoretically, in the face. He’d approved.
All well and good, but now I was facing firing that gun into actual flesh and bone. Into Mr. Skinhead, who looked like he could chew small-caliber bullets and spit armor-piercing ones back; this was not his first pistol rodeo, for sure. One good thing: he wasn’t going to fit through that narrow opening I’d wedged myself into. . . . But he was more than capable of pulling the entire bleachers out, which he began doing, with harsh metallic shrieks of protesting, creaking metal. He paused and shone a flashlight into the gaps, playing it around until it spilled over my pale face.